Virtual Reality
by Child of the Ancients
Summary: In the future, people spen their days in virtual reality Kagome is no different. After joining an online adverture game, she is given a questfind the Shikon no Tama. A demon ends up joining her, which is a good thing because the quest turns out to be
1. Default Chapter

Virtual Reality

Chapter One

Kagome yawned as she felt the warm late morning sun on her face, her warm brown eyes opening. She looked around her room as she sat up. Her white walls were rather plain, but pink curtains hung around her window, and a chair and oak desk with a few very old books rested in the corner. Her closet door was near the desk, and the rest of the room was mostly taken up by the large VR set. The machine included a padded chair and white helmet that connected to the rest of the VR machine, which was made up of white plastic parts and over a hundred wires.

Stretching like a cat, she stood up and threw off her nightgown. Humming to herself, she went over to her closet and pulled on some clothes--a white shirt and green skirt. Then, she sat down at her desk and looked up at the ceiling. "House?" she inquired politely, her tone sweet and kind.

"Yes?" a voice responded from nowhere and everywhere. It was genderless and soothing, a voice that could only be created by a computer.

"Bacon and eggs please," the raven-haired girl requested. A moment later, a small white robot wheeled into the room, carrying a tray with the food she had asked for. She took the tray, and the 'bot wheeled out.

Kagome ate her meal rather quickly, and the 'bot returned to take away her tray. Despite the impersonality of it all, she kind of liked the instant service. It was so easy just to ask the house for something and have it delivered right to her. She had no idea where the food came from, save that it was prepared in the kitchen by the robots. Everyone had the instant service, so it was nothing unusual.

Also, every house on the planet Calomir was automated and equipped with robots to tend to its inhabitants' every need. Her house had four occupants: her, her mom, her grandpa, and her little brother. Her mother had brown hair and dark eyes, and her brother Sota shared the same characteristics. Her grandpa had gray hair and dark eyes, and he was a little eccentric. Kagome didn't know them very well though, because she rarely saw them. They spent most of their time in the VR world, just like everyone else did. Even she spent over ninety percent of her waking time there.

Smiling in anticipation as a thought crossed her mind, she went over to her VR set and sat down in the chair, putting on the helmet. With practiced ease, she signed in and quickly logged onto her favorite part of the VR world--an adventure game called Ancient Worlds. It was a large game in which people all over the world played and explored different realms designed after ancient cultures. Administrators called Elves ran it; and their servants, the fairies, relayed messages to the players.

Within moments, Kagome stood just inside a large forest by a gigantic tree--the Goshinko tree. Late morning sunlight filtered down through the thick foliage, playing across her face and body in golden rays of warm beauty. The green grass brushed against the hem of her pants, and the warm summer air smelled of wild flowers and naturally growing herbs. Her black hair blew around her in the pleasant wind, and her white shirt and red hamaka pants whipped about her body. A small quiver of arrows was slung over her back, and a limber bow rested in her left hand.

"Now, where is that fairy?" she mumbled to herself, her brown eyes searching the area. The day before, a small blue fairy had informed her that she would be receiving a quest in about twenty four hours. Every player received a quest at least once in their game life, and she was looking forward to hers.

Seeing nothing but plants and small animals, she sighed and sat down at the foot of the Goshinko tree, setting her bow down beside her. It was within reach; she made sure of that. Not everyone in the game world was nice. Many people, especially players who had been picked to be demons or even half demons, went around fighting and killing.

There were three types of players: humans, demons, and mikos/priests. Technically, mikos and priests were humans; however, while humans were usually weak, mikos and priests had magic. Demons were physically and sometimes magically strong players. Kagome, being a female, was a called a miko, and a powerful one, according to her stats. She just didn't quite know how to use her powers all that well at the moment.

The day she had signed up for the game, she had taken a long quiz and sent in a picture of herself. An hour after she had done that, the elves had sent her an email, listing her stats. She had, of course, been very excited, and she still was. She had only signed up a month ago. Unfortunately, a month wasn't very long, and she still needed more time to learn how to use her magical powers.

Suddenly, a bright ball of orange light floated into Kagome's line of vision. In the middle of the light was a tiny winged humanoid figure no bigger than her palm. Its tiny butterfly-like wings fluttered rapidly, becoming just a simple orange blur. A simple tunic hung on its shoulders, covering its genderless body. Fairies never were male or female. They were merely flying bodies of zeros and ones controlled by programs and surrounded by light.

"Kagome, are you ready to receive your quest?" the little fairy asked, its tiny voice just loud enough to be heard. The quality of the speech reminded the girl of her house's voice--both genderless and soothing. It was the most unnatural sound in the entire game world.

The miko nodded her head, brown eyes serious. "Yes, I am." She was hoping for a fun quest, like defeat an evil demon that was a game-created AI or rescue someone. Most people received quests like those; however, sometimes the elves gave a player the quest of traveling to a dangerous spot in the game world to retrieve an item. She was really, really praying that she would not receive one of those. She hadn't been playing long enough to survive a quest like that.

"Your quest is this: find the Shikon no Tama and bring it to the Elven Council. There is a time limit of one year." The orange creature tapped Kagome's nose once, marking her with invisible magic as a mission-given player, and then flew off.

_'Oh my... I don't even know what the Shikon no Tama is. How in the world am I suppose to find it?' _The miko frowned thoughtfully, leaning back against the large tree. _'I need to talk to Lady Kaede. She'll help me.' _

With that thought on her mind, the miko stood up and walked towards the small village that rested just outside the forest. 

  


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Kagome smiled as she walked toward Kaede's hut. The people in the village looked so content to just sit around, talk, or go about their daily chores. Some of the people were game-created AIs, but others were actual players who wanted to socialize instead of go on adventures. All the people, both players and AIs, were humans dressed in old fashioned Japanese kimonos.

The only person in the entire village who was different was Kaede, and that was because she was a miko and an old one at that. She had been playing the game for over fifty years, which was quite a feat. Most people quit after five years. Ten years was almost unheard of, so fifty years was plain amazing.

Brown eyes watching the world around her, she pushed back the cloth flap on the front of the wooden hut and walked inside. She stood in the doorway for a moment, adjusting to the darker area. When she could see again, she noticed Kaede sitting on the wooden floor by a fire in a dirt pit, stirring a pot. The smell of stew swirled around, filling the air with the feeling of simple warmth and friendship.

The old miko had styled her long gray hair in the usual way--pulled back in a ponytail at the nape of her neck. Her white shirt and red hamaka pants, the traditional miko style of clothing, looked clean and neat. One eye was covered with a black eye patch, and the other one was a dark brown that sparkled with wisdom most people only dreamed about. At the moment, her one good eye was fixed onto the pot in front of her, and she didn't even glance up when she finally spoke. "Sit down, child. Ye knows that ye are welcome here."

Kagome did as she was told, sitting down across the fire from the old miko, setting her bow down on the floor. The warmth from the flames encircled her, greeting her as she smiled at the old woman. "Lady Kaede, I've just been given my quest," she stated.

"Ah... I was wondering when ye were going to receive it," Kaede commented, finally raising her head to meet the young girl's gaze. "So, tell me, what is it the Elves wish ye to do?"

"I'm supposed to find the Shikon no Tama and bring it to the Elves," Kagome replied.

Kaede's expression turned thoughtful. "I have never heard of this object which ye speak of." She paused, and the young miko sighed sadly. "But, I do know of someone who could possibly help ye."

Kagome's brown eyes lit with happiness. _ 'Thank goodness! This is going to be much easier if I have a starting place.' _ "Could you please tell me who?" she inquired.

"The gray-haired woman nodded her head. "I was speaking of the Oracle at Delphi. If ye can reach her, then she should be able to tell ye where this Shikon no Tama rests."

"The Oracle at Delphi..." the black-haired miko repeated, gently chewing on her bottom lip. "Delphi is in Ancient Greece."

"That it is. Does ye know where the connecting bridge is?" Kaede asked.

Kagome shook her head. Each ancient world was like a bubble floating around in space, and special bridges connected each world. Not all the bridges were normal every-day structures like the ones in the real world. Some of them were holes in the ground that allowed a player to drop straight down into another world, and others were portals at the top of castle towers that teleported a player to another place.

"The connecting bridge is a few miles east of here in the back of Amaterasu's cave," the old woman informed her. "But I warn ye, the path there is dangerous. Dark youkai have been known to hide out in the forest that stands between here and ye destination."

The teenager sighed. Everything seemed to be dangerous in the game, but there wasn't anything she could do about that. She needed to find the Shikon no Tama, no matter dangerous the path seemed. There were penalties for failing in a quest, but the Elves never assigned the same punishment twice.

"Thank you, Lady Kaede. I'll try to be careful," Kagome promised, tone sincere.

"See that ye do. I would hate to find ye dead," Kaede responded, giving the girl a grandmotherly look.

Wincing at the thoughts that statement brought up, the young miko grasped her bow and stood up. "Stay safe, Lady Kaede."

"Ye too, child." The ancient woman motioned for the girl to leave. "Now get going. Ye happen to be wasting time."

"Of course, Lady Kaede." Kagome bowed, showing her respect for the old woman. "And thank you!" Smiling cheerfully, she ran out of the hut and into the bright sunshine.

Taking a deep breath and saying a quick prayer, she faced the sun and began to walk. Her slipper-covered feet made little noise on the dirt path, and only a few of the villagers even noticed her presence as she walked through the town. Close to the center of the village, a young child did wave good-bye to her as she passed, and she waved back.

Fifteen minutes later, the raven-haired miko found herself out of the small village and on the fringes of an ancient forest filled with towering trees. Each of the moss-covered trunks were at least three times as big around as she was, their leafy branches reaching high up, as if to trap the white clouds and block out the bright sun. Thick underbrush full of thorny bushes and tall weeds covered most of the ground that the trees left open. Only a single, shadowy dirt path cut through all the dense vegetation, leaving just enough space for two people to walk side-by-side into the woods.

_'Boy, this place certainly looks friendly and cheerful,' _Kagome thought sarcastically as she took her first step into the forest. When she saw no signs of evil demons, she continued on, keeping her eyes and ears open.

She saw trees, bushes, and signs of animal life, as well as heard the sweet calls of birds; however, she neither heard nor sensed any demons. Of course, she had sensed a single demon even once in her game life. Unlike other mikos such as Kaede, she couldn't tell when a demon was coming or going. Either her skills weren't that developed yet, or she just didn't have the ability, which was rather strange in her opinion. She was beginning to wonder if she had a defective character design.

The miko smiled at the first sign of color besides green and brown. A leafy vine curling around a tree had a single red blossom, like a drop of blood amongst all the earthy colors. The flower stood out like sour thumb, but it was still beautiful. The long crimson petals stretched out to their full glory of four inches long and two inches wide, a streak of orange-red running straight down the center of each.

Kagome reached out and picked the flower, bringing it to her nose to smell. The fragrance was warm and thick, like sweet honey mixed with clover and jasmine. Still grinning, she tucked the flower behind her ear, finally noticing that the red color perfectly matched her pants.

While she mused over her strange ability to color-coordinate, she heard a crashing sound off in the distance. It sounding like trees snapping and then tumbling to the ground. Birds flew overhead, their cries of alarm filling the air and sending more animals into a panic. Even the smaller rodent-like creatures ran right in front of the girl, seeming to not care that she was there, which was rather strange animal behavior.

_'Oh no...' _ Kagome pulled an arrow out of her quiver and strung it on her bow, preparing to fire it at any second. Something was coming, and it was obviously big, strong, and scary. The animals in the game world didn't run for nothing.

Praying that the thing making all the racket wouldn't come her way, she began to quickly walk down the dirt path. She made as little noise as she could, trying to avoid attracting any attention. She didn't want to end up as food for some hungry game-created AI monster.

"Dear, Kami..." the young girl whispered to the designated deity of the world. "Please let me get through this in one piece."

Each world had different designated deities, most of which were based on ancient mythology. The Japanese world had the old Japanese gods, like Fujin, a fire god, and Ryo-Wo, a sea god. The Greek world had the old Greek gods, and the same applied to the other worlds. Each of the gods and goddesses were game-created AIs that sometimes helped out players. It didn't occur often, but it did actually happen.

The crashing noises came closer, and Kagome began to panic. She broke into a run, clutching her bow and arrow in her hands. Her feet pounded on the dirt, and her wide pants' legs caught on thorns.

"I smell miko!" a loud female voice exclaimed, the sound echoing through the forest.

The raven-haired girl gasped, tripping over a tree root right as a tree came crashing down about five feet in front of her. Her bow flew out of her hand, and her quiver of arrows scattered across the ground.

"Oh no! My weapons!" Knowing that she'd be doomed without them, Kagome scurried to gather her fallen items back up. She took deep breaths to calm herself down as she scrambled in the dirt for all her arrows, finding only half of them.

"It's dinner time!" the same voice as before shouted right as a centipede demon erupted out of a thick grouping of trees. She flew over the miko, her thousands of legs just barely skimming over the top of the raven head.

The teenager put an arrow on her bow and fired at the huge demon, hitting the creature in the soft underside. An angry high-pitch screech rang through the area, nearly making painful tears come to the miko's eyes. She notched another arrow as she watched the demon come around for a second swoop at her. The creature had the top half an ugly woman's body connected to its fifty-foot centipede length, which screamed unnatural. In one of the creatures human arms was an old, rusty sword.

Hoping beyond hope that she would survive, she fired her arrow, trying to put some of her purification magic behind it. She succeeded, but the arrow didn't do any good; the centipede demon dodged.

Kagome fired a few more arrows, and most of them missed. She threw herself to the ground as the demon flew down at her, a hungry look in her eyes. Luckily, she missed, pulling up before she could grab the young girl, leaving her back wide open to an attack.

Seeing her chance to kill the demon, the miko reached back to pull an arrow from her quiver. She found nothing. Her quiver was empty of anything and everything. _'This is not good! I'm doomed if I can't defend myself, and the sole bit of magic I can use now only works if I have skin contact.' _

Terror swamped her body as she began to run down the dirt path, climbing over the large trees that had fallen. Her heart raced, the muscle pounding so hard she thought her chest would burst. Her breath came out short and raspy, and her barely-protected feet quickly became a problem when she stepped on a sharp rock.

"I always liked to eat on the run!" Insane laughter followed that comment, making the teenager's blood run cold.

Suddenly, Kagome fell to the ground with a gasp, her momentum carrying her a few feet farther down the path. Her back slammed into the trunk of a tree, and a thorn bush dug into her side. She struggled to stand up as the centipede demon flew toward her, triumph in her dark eyes.

"Mine!" the creature exclaimed happily, licking her lips. She was almost upon the helpless girl when a blur of silver and red streaked through the air, colliding with the centipede demon.

"Give me back my sword!" a young male voice demanded as the demon slammed through the trunks of ten trees.

Kagome stared in wonder at the man who stood in front of her. Long silver hair fell to his waist, a pair of dog-like ears resting on the top of his head. They moved as if they were real, which the miko knew they were. He was dressed in all red with an empty sheath at his side, but he went barefoot.

"It is a stupid, useless thing, but since you want it so badly, I think I'll keep it," the centipede demon replied as she moved to attack the dog-eared man.

"You just signed your death warrant." He leapt at her, bringing one clawed hand down to strike her. "Sankon Tetsusou!"

His claws ripped through the attacking demon like knives would butter, leaving nothing left of her body but shreds of flesh and quite a bit of blood. A moment later, the mutilated remains vanished, leaving nothing but the rusty sword behind.

The silver-haired man walked over and picked up the sword, sheathing it a moment later. When he turned around, Kagome noticed his beautiful golden eyes. They were like nothing she had ever seen before, the twin pools of molten metal. She just about lost herself in his eyes that were set in his handsome face.

"Thank you," she told the man once she could talk again.

"I didn't kill her to save you. I wanted my sword," he retorted in a gruff voice.

Kagome huffed. "You don't have to be rude. I was only thanking you," she shot back. "The least you could do is say you're welcome!"

"I don't have to obey orders from you!" he shouted, crossing his arms.

The miko shook her head, making a face of disgust. "Pig-headed jerk," she mumbled, deciding to forget about him and find as many of her arrows as she could.

She began to walk around, picking up the thin pieces of wood and putting them back in her quiver. The arrows she had used magic with were the easiest to find because they still held a pink-purple glow to them. The entire time she could feel eyes upon her, but she ignored them. Once she felt that she had gathered up all her shafts, she began to walk down the dirt path again.

The first time Kagome came to a fallen tree and made to climb over it, she found the silver-haired man on the thick trunk, crouching on it. He seemed unfazed by the rough bark under his hands and feet, because he only stared at her, blinking a few times.

"What?!" she demanded, hands on her hips.

"Can you shoot purification arrows?" he inquired, sounding a little curious.

"Yes," Kagome replied, glaring at him. She couldn't figure out why he would ask such a strange question, so she simply decided to ignore him. "Now, good-bye. I have a quest to complete." She began to climb over the huge tree trunk. As she was struggling, she felt something grab the back of her shirt and lift her up.

"Could you shoot a moving demon with one or use it as a distraction aid for someone else?" the golden-eyed male asked, setting her down on the tree next to him.

She nodded her head. "Yes, I can. Why are you asking me these questions?" She was quickly growing tired of him bothering her.

"Feh." He turned his head to the side, as if debating with himself. When he turned back to look at her, he fixed his golden eyes on her brown ones. "I have a quest that must be completed by tomorrow. I've already tried, and I found out that I supposedly need someone to distract the demon while I attack him from behind. That's where his only weak spot is."

"Why should I help you with your quest? After all, you've been rather rude to me. Besides, I don't even know who you are." She began to slide down the side of the tree trunk, ready to be on her way once again.

A hand pulled her back up on the log. "If you help me with mine, then I'll help you with yours. Deal?" He sounded willing to do anything to acquire her help.

Kagome studied his face, her eyes noticing his adorable ears twitch on top of his head. For some reason, she just couldn't seem to resist those moving white furry triangles. It took all of her willpower not to reach out and touch them. "Alright. Deal." She paused. "I'm Kagome. So, who are you?"

"Inuyasha," he replied gruffly. "Are you happy now? Can we get going?"

She nodded her head. "Yes."

"Good. C'mon then." He threw her onto his back and began to race off.

Surprised, she could only hang on to him as trees began nothing but brown and green blurs. She couldn't help but be amazed by how fast he could run. He was faster than anyone else she had ever seen, and that included all the other demons she had seen in the past month.

"Where exactly are we going?" Kagome asked, clutching a fistful of his crimson haori shirt in both of her hands. The rough material felt wonderfully stable and real when compared to the rushing scenery. The quick speed was exciting but a little dizzying for her.

"To fight the dragon demon Ryuukossei," he replied as he jumped over a fallen tree and a clump of thorn bushes. "He lives near a cave."

"How long-?" she began, but the demon quickly cut her off.

"Ten... fifteen minutes," he informed her. "Are you done asking questions yet?" He sounded irked.

Kagome huffed in annoyance, unable to see why he had to be so rude. _ 'Jerk.' _ "There's no reason to be so mean. After all, I did agree to help you."

"And I returned the favor," Inuyasha retorted. "Big deal."

The miko rolled her eyes at his child-like attitude. _'This is going to be a pathetic alliance if we spend our entire time arguing.' _

She was still silently grumbling when they came out of the dark forest and into a field of tall grass and wild flowers. The calm field seemed to stretch for miles, filling her vision with a splash of bright green speckled with other colors. Small insects buzzed about, flitting from flower to flower.

After a moment's hesitation, Inuyasha continued to run, his movements even faster since he didn't have to worry about accidentally running into a tree. As he traveled, he kept his eyes open for any signs of the dragon demon, but nothing even hinted at there being any life forms bigger than him and the girl on his back.

He stopped running and looked around, trying to see if he could smell the demon; he couldn't. Either Ryuukossei was downwind, hiding his scent, or too far away.

Suddenly, his mind brought up the fact that he had a magic-wielding human on his back. "Yo, Kagome! You're a miko. Tell me which direction you sense a powerful demon in."

Kagome shook her head, her eyes sad. "I can't."

Inuyasha briefly laughed, amused by that comment; however, he quickly stopped. "No, really. Tell me."

She sighed. "I can't sense demons. I've never been able to." Admitting that fact hurt, but she knew that it hadn't been avoidable. She would have had to tell him eventually.

"What kind of a miko can't sense demons?!" he demanded to know, tone laced with disbelief. He was beginning to think that he was soon going to regret making the deal with her, especially since she seemed so weak.

She huffed and hit him on the back of the head for being so uncaring. "It's not my fault!" she exclaimed in fury, scowling at the back of his head.

Without warning, Inuyasha dumped her on the ground. If she was going to yell and hit, then he was going to do the same thing. "Wench, I just asked a question! That's no reason to hit me!"

Kagome stood back up, rubbing her bottom. "Ow... that hurt!" she shouted. "And I had every right to hit you. You insulted me, jerk!" She glared at him. "And my name's Kagome, not wench, thank you very much."

"Feh." He crossed his arms over his chest. "Is there anything else you need to tell me?"

"I'm not obligated to tell you anything!" she snapped. "And you have no right to demand information from me like that!"

Inuyasha growled at her, opening his mouth to shout something back; however, he wasn't given the chance. Someone interrupted him.

"So, you've finally decided to come back, weakling half breed," a deep voice stated as a hundred-foot long dragon demon came into the clearing. "Are you ready to fail in your quest once again?"

"I don't think so!" the dog-eared boy retorted, unsheathing his sword. The blade transformed from a rusted piece of junk into a gleaming, extremely sharp, fang-like sword. It was obviously an enchanted sword, which impressed the miko. Any kind of enchanted weapon was hard to find and three times as expense.

Brandishing the amazing weapon, Inuyasha attacked, swinging the blade at Ryuukossei's head. The dragon demon easily dodged, so he moved to strike again.

Kagome, quickly noticing that Inuyasha would need her help, retreated back to a more advantageous spot. Her brown eyes on the enemy, she pulled an arrow out of her quiver, notched it, drew the arrow back as she brought the bow up, and then released the shaft, sending her purification magic with it.

The arrow blazed pink-purple, striking Ryuukossei in the foreleg and sinking a few inches into his skin. The purple-pink magic sparkled around the wound and spread over some of his skin, causing the dragon demon to roar in pain. Violent eyes flashed dangerously as he turned to the miko and charged at her.

She notched another arrow as she stared into the demon's murderous eyes, her mouth suddenly becoming dry. He obviously had never been hurt before which wasn't good for her, because he was planning on making her pay for his pain. With that thought on her mind, she said a brief prayer and released her second purification arrow.

The shaft arched through the air at an amazing speed, heading straight for the dragon demon's heart. She watched it fly closer and closer, and things seemed to slow down as the arrow drew nearer to its target.

At the last possible second, Ryuukossei dodged, barrel-rolling out of the way as he continued on his killing path toward the raven-haired girl.

Finally beginning to panic, she notched her third arrow. _ 'Where is Inuyasha?' _she wondered as she fired her weapon. The shaft missed the enemy demon.

The dragon demon was finally so close that she didn't have time to fire a fourth arrow, so she did the only thing she could do--she prayed. She prayed to every Japanese god and goddess she could remember, pleading for a miracle.

Her brown eyes filled with fear, she watched the creature race at her, his body filling her vision. She prepared herself for death and cursed Inuyasha for abandoning her to die.

"Kaze no Kizu!" a male voice shouted.

Immense power erupted in front of the girl, blinding her. She closed her eyes and braced for the impact she knew was coming, but she felt only a strong breeze. The teeth and fangs didn't come, much to her astonishment.

Confused, Kagome opened her eyes and looked around. Ryuukossei was gone; only Inuyasha stood in the field, his gleaming sword still in his hand. She blinked a few times, surprise on her face.

"What happened?" she inquired, walking towards the silver-haired male.

He let his sword resume its rusty form and sheathed it, the movement smooth and practiced. "I killed him, that's what happened."

"Okay." Kagome nodded her head in understanding. _'So he didn't abandon me.' _ "So, what do we do now? Do you have to prove to the Elves that you completed your quest?"

Inuyasha shook his head. "No, one of the stupid light bulbs is supposed to appear after Ryuukossei dies and congratulate me or something." He snorted, showing the miko just what he thought about the fairies.

As if it had been summoned, a violet fairy suddenly appeared and flew up to them, stopping to hover directly in front of Inuyasha. "You have completed your quest. The Elven Council congratulates you on a job well done," the fairy stated in its genderless voice.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever." He flapped his hand, obviously annoyed by the little being. For some reason or another, he had never liked the little messengers.

"They would like to grant you something as a reward," the winged-being continued to explain.

At that statement, Inuyasha's furry ears perked up. _'Reward? Well, it sounds like they've finally come to their senses.' _ He smiled. "What reward is that?"

"A new power." The violet fairy tapped his sword twice. "The sword has been upgraded, and the new attack it now has is Bakuryuuha." It nodded once. "Good-bye and good luck." After saying that, it flew off.

"Wow... a new power. That's pretty cool," Kagome commented. She paused for a few seconds. _ 'I suppose I should thank him. After all, he did save me.' _"Oh, Inuyasha? Thanks for keeping the dragon demon from killing me." She was thankful that she hadn't died. If a player died, then he or she had to either start off from where they had last saved, or the player had to go back to the beginning and trudge through the whole signing up process again. What the player had to do depended on the circumstances and sometimes what the Elven Council decided.

"You distracted him for me, so it was the least I could do," he replied, a smirk tugging on the corners of his lips. _'She isn't as weak as she first seemed, not that I'd tell her that.' _ "So, are you going to tell me what we're doing now or where we're going?"

She nodded her head. "My quest is to find the Shikon no Tama."

"And that's... where exactly?" Inuyasha wanted to know. "It'd better not be at the bottom of some ocean."

Kagome shrugged, knowing that he would go berserk when he heard her answer. "I don't know."

"YOU WHAT?!"

  
  


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CotA: Hey people. This is my wonderful, new story... that only has one chapter so far. *winces* I have this story planned out from beginning to end. There will be 10 chapters plus an epilogue, and unlike my last story, it will actually live up to its genre. All of the chapters but two or three will contain battle scenes. Also, each chapter is going to be long... so updates won't come as often as they used to. Sorry, but that's the truth. I'm putting a lot more work into this story than my last one, so I'm hoping it'll be better and more people will like it. *crosses fingers* Well, please push the little purple button. 


	2. Chapter 2

Virtual Reality 

Chapter Two

Kagome sighed, briefly closing her chocolate eyes. "Inuyasha... there's no reason to shout like that," she stated calmly.

"No reason?" the dog demon repeated, narrowing his golden orbs at her in annoyance. "You don't fucking know where this stupid object is!" He growled for a few moments, the sound vibrating through the air and into her body. She found the noise sexy, but she wasn't about to say that. Knowing him, he would make fun of her if she did.

"Will you just relax?" she demanded hotly, her hands on her hips. Her brown eyes filled with an inner fire, revealing just how angry she was. "I know where we can go to find out the location, so just chill!"

Inuyasha blinked, his white fuzzy ears on top of his head twitching a little, the adorable movement tweaking the miko's heartstrings. "Okay, and where is that?" he asked, giving her an impatient look.

"Delphi," the raven-haired girl answered, trying to keep her temper from running away from her. "We're going to visit the oracle."

"And just how are we going to translate the answer she's going to give us?" the silver-haired demon wanted to know, feeling hesitant about their current game plan. He didn't trust oracles; they were too hard to understand. In his two years of playing the game, he had never heard of a single person who had received a straight answer from an oracle. The annoying AIs tended to be difficult just because they could, and what was even worse was they couldn't be killed or physically harmed in any way.

Kagome rolled her eyes at him, taking a deep breath. _ 'Is he purposely trying to get on my nerves?' _she wondered. "I don't know how, but it's the only lead I have. If you have a better idea, I'd love to hear it." She stared at him expectantly, waiting for a response.

Inuyasha thought for a few minutes, but he came up with nothing, much to his disappointment. With no idea what he needed to find, he couldn't even figure out which world to search in. "Fine. We'll do it your way, but if it doesn't work, don't blame me," he snapped, crossing his arms to show his resolve.

"Don't worry, I won't!" she shot back, her temper become shorter as the seconds passed. He kept pushing her buttons, and she didn't even know how. It was almost like he could read her and predict exactly what would annoy her the most. She couldn't stand people who could do that.

"Good." He nodded his head. "Now, I'm guessing you don't know how to get to Delphi, do you?" His tone was condescending and rude, making her blood boil. Never in her life had anyone been so disrespecting toward her.

Kagome snorted. "Despite what you think, I do know the way there," she answered stiffly. "Which is a good thing, considering you probably don't know how to get to Delphi."

"Feh." Inuyasha paused, his golden eyes holding a small amount of uncertainty. He hadn't known the way. "Well, start talking. How do we get there, Miss Know-It-All?"

Growling, the miko glared at him, aptly conveying her displeasure to him. If he was going to be rude, then she was going to do the same. "Simple. We use Amaterasu's cave to get to Greece. Then, we walk to Delphi."

"Wow... you really blew me away with that set of directions," he commented sarcastically, mentally grumbling over how pathetic the female was. Just when his opinion of her improved, she did something to bring it back down.

"Well, since you obviously think you can do better, you can get us to Amaterasu's cave and to Delphi," Kagome retorted evenly. "If you do that, then you can say 'I told you so.' Okay?"

The silver-haired demon grinned evilly. "Sure thing." He knelt down, moving his long locks to the side and baring his red-clothed back. "Get on."

"Alright." The miko did as he wanted, automatically clutching his haori shirt in her hands. "Do you know the way to the cave?"

"What do you think, wench?!" Inuyasha snapped, wondering if she ever shut up. He was betting that she didn't, and he was beginning to wish for some duct tape to close her mouth with.

She huffed as he began to run in a south-east direction, his speed making the scenery rush by once again. His breath came smooth and even, revealing just how easy it was for him to keep up the amazing pace. Long locks of his silver hair whipped around, hitting her in the face, making her grumble. The style of travel was easy on her feet, but it left much to be desired when it came to other comforts. For instance, his hair was a problem, and his haori was so rough that it irritated her hands.

Kagome sighed, knowing that she didn't have much a choice about how she arrived at the cave. Her partner was stubborn, and she highly doubted she could convince him to do anything about his hair. Mentally shaking her head, she rested her cheek on his shoulder, slightly burying her face in the crook of his neck to avoid his lashing tresses.

With nothing to do, she allowed herself to relax. She caught a whiff of his scent, finding it spicy and masculine. It somehow matched his personality--firm, a little rough, but nice enough to keep her attention. Inuyasha was rude, but he was kind enough to carry her instead of force her to try to travel by foot at his incredibly quick speed. For that small action, she was grateful, and it wasn't so bad if she ignored his hair and his rough clothes.

"How far away is the cave?" Kagome inquired, trying to make out some of her surroundings; she failed.

"About twenty minutes or so," he replied. "There's a large village not too far away from it. We'll stop there so you can get some more arrows. You're probably going to need them."

The miko nodded her head. "Sounds good. Greece probably isn't any safer than Japan," she commented, knowing that she most likely correct. Japan was relatively safe since so many players hung out there, spending their time killing monsters and such.

"I know it's not," Inuyasha stated as he turned due east. "There's actually more monsters in Greece than any other world I've visited, so I suggest you stick close to me while we're there." 

"No arguments here," Kagome responded, a small wistful smile on her face. She wished she could protect herself, but since she couldn't do that yet, she opted for letting someone else do it. As long as she stayed alive, she didn't care too much who kept her from dying. "So, what worlds have you been to?"

"Greece, Rome, China, Africa, the Americas, Australia, Turkey..." He paused, obviously thinking. "I can't remember any of the other ones."

Her jaw dropped, astonished by all the places he had been. It was almost unbelievable for her. "How long have you been playing this game?" she inquired, amazement in her voice.

"About two years," the dog-eared boy replied nonchalantly. To him, it wasn't all that big of a deal how long he had played. Other people had been around much longer than him, and he even knew a few. He wouldn't call them friends, but they were acquaintances.

"Wow... I've been on for only a month," Kagome stated, her eyes wide, appreciation for his accomplishment in her voice.

"One month?" Inuyasha repeated, sounding shocked. "You've been on for only a month and you already have a quest?"

She nodded, not understanding why he would ask such a question. Surely it wouldn't matter when a player received a quest from the Elven Council. "Yeah."

"What are those stupid Elves thinking?! You're still a newbie, and you never send newbies on quests," he declared, his tone one of frustration. "It's like sending them on a suicide mission!" He slightly shook his head, making a sound of disgust. _ 'I don't know what's going on with the Elves, but I think they're losing their common sense. I've never heard of them sending a newbie on a quest before.' _ He made a face. _'Fucking idiots.' _

Kagome and Inuyasha were silent after that, both thinking their own thoughts, except the demon did more mental grumbling than actual thinking. The miko mused over what the Shikon no Tama could possibly be. Since she knew nothing about it, it could be anything, and she didn't like that fact. For all she knew, the Elves had told her to bring them a palace or something from some little-known realm. She doubted that, but it was a possibility.

She was still thinking when the demon stopped running, slowing to a walk right outside a village. He looked around, setting Kagome down. The village was more of a town, probably containing about two thousand people at least. Buildings lined the criss-crossing streets, small stalls littering the square and surrounding streets in the center of the large village. Men and women of all ages wandered the streets in kimonos, purchasing different items from stalls and shops or chatting with friends and neighbors.

His golden eyes watchful, he followed Kagome to a fletcher's stall along one street. As she picked out and paid for some high-quality arrows, he kept one eye on her and one eye on the rest of the village. Most of the people seemed normal players and game AIs, so he didn't worry about them. He was more concerned with other demons, mikos, and priests. More often than not, it was a demon who caused problems, but sometimes mikos and priests killed other players for the fun of it.

"Inuyasha?" Kagome asked as she walked up to him. "It's around noon where I live." She had programmed her computer to tell her when it was time to eat meals, and the alarm had just gone off. Like any normal human, she needed to take a break from the computer, eat something, and visit the bathroom. 

"Alright." He nodded in understanding. "We meet back here in half an hour; however..." He glared at her. "If you're not here in thirty minutes, I'll leave you here and go on by myself."

The miko rolled her eyes. "Fine. Whatever." She flapped her hand at him, showing him just what she thought of his threat. "I'll see you." Then, she saved her game and logged off.

She found herself in the normal VR area, a link to her email account in one corner of her vision. More links littered the screen, but she ignored them. Instead, she went to the shut down button and pressed it. When she did that, everything became black. 

  


* * *

  


Kagome pulled her VR helmet off, shaking out her dark hair as she set the helmet down on its small platform. It almost felt strange to be back in the real world, especially since the game felt so real. In the game, she could feel everything as if she was really there. She felt like she was supposed to have a quiver of arrows on her back even in the real world because that was what she was used to.

Sighing, the brown-eyed girl went over to her desk and sat down in front of it. "House?" she inquired.

"Yes?" the house responded. 

"A turkey and cheese sandwich please," Kagome requested politely, and a three foot robot quickly wheeled it in, setting it on her desk before leaving. She ate her sandwich, contemplating everything that had happened in the game.

Inuyasha was a strange guy, especially since he spent half his time arguing with her. The other half of the time he wasn't too bad. He had been nice enough to carry her and stop at the village so she could buy more arrows. Also, when she had said that the Elves had given her a quest after a month, he had actually become angry on her behalf. So, he really wasn't a bad guy, just an easily angered one.

The raven-haired girl finished off her sandwich and headed for the bathroom. When she was right outside the door, a four and a half foot high, fast moving, dark-haired boy ran her over to get in there first, almost slamming the door in her face.

Kagome blinked a few times, a little surprised by what had just happened. Normally, people didn't run around her house, although if anyone was going to do it, then her younger brother Souta would, as he had just proved. For some reason or another, he was in a hurry.

Ten minutes later, she was still waiting for him to get out of the bathroom. Frowning, she pounded on the door. "Hey, Souta! Hurry up in there, would ya?" she shouted.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," he replied. "I'll be out in a sec. Keep your skirt on."

Kagome rolled her eyes, and Souta almost ran her over again when he came out of the bathroom. His hair had been neatly combed, and his face had been washed.

"What's your hurry?" she asked before her younger brother sprinted around the corner.

"I'm meeting a girl at the cafe!" Souta shouted over his shoulder.

She looked at him with slightly wider brown eyes. "You're what?!" When people met in the VR world, they sometimes met at a special cafe in the center of town. The cafe building was the only other structure other than a house that was ever built in any town, and they were usually big, about twice the size of any house. The cafe served food and drink, but she didn't quite know what one looked like from personal experience. She had never visited one.

"Don't worry. I'm taking a 'bot," he replied before he shot around the corner and out of sight.

Kagome shook her head and entered the bathroom. There were days she worried about her brother. She had never felt any desire to meet anyone in the real world, but obviously he was different. Well, since she couldn't see anything wrong with him meeting a friend at a cafe with a 'bot at his side, she wasn't going to say a word.

She finished her business in the bathroom and went back to her room. Somehow, although she didn't know how, she still had five minutes before she was supposed to meet Inuyasha back in the game. 

Shrugging, she sat down and put the VR helmet on. 

  


* * *

  


Kagome smiled as she found herself in the busy village once more, the many people hurrying about as they shopped and chatted. She didn't see Inuyasha, so she wandered around the street a little, admiring some of the jewelry in a nearby stall. A particular piece caught her attention--a gold choker studded with diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and emeralds. The sunlight made it sparkle and gleam, revealing just how beautiful it really was. She couldn't even image how much it was worth, but she guessed that it cost a couple of million ruyu.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" the stall owner asked in a calm, musical voice. Her deep brown eyes gazed out of a young, lovely, pale face that was framed by long midnight-black hair that came down to her waist. She was dressed in a white and pink kimono decorated with lilac and pale blue flowers. "My husband made it himself."

"It's gorgeous," the miko replied breathlessly, amused and a little surprised by how much the other female looked like her.

"He said that I was the inspiration for it," the woman said with a laugh. "I'm not so sure about that, but I still love it. It's my favorite piece of his."

"I've never seen anything like it." Kagome smiled at the female, forming an instant liking for her. She thought the woman was so kind and sweet, sort of like she expected an older sister to sound. "And if I owned something like that, I'd put in a safe or something."

The stall owner returned the warm expression. "That's not necessary. There are enough spells on this stall to keep anyone with the intent to steal from touching it or anything else of mine." She gestured toward the jeweled collar. "Go ahead and have a look at it."

The miko blinked a few times. "Okay." She reached out and gently took the necklace in her hands, turning it this way and that in the light. "I can't even begin to imagine how much work went into this... or how much it'd cost." She put the gold piece of jewelry back, her eyes lingering on it for a few moments.

"It took my husband about a month to make it," she responded. "And he has yet to put a price on it."

"Wow..." Kagome gave the collar one last wistful look before turning her attention to the other pieces of jewelry at the stall.

The woman ever so slightly cocked her head slightly to one side. "This is your first time here, isn't it?"

The raven-haired miko nodded. "Yes. I stopped here for arrows, and I'm heading out to Amaterasu's cave in a little bit."

"Would you mind some advice?" the stall keeper inquired politely.

Kagome shook her head. "Not at all." In truth, she usually welcomed advice, especially if it was free. She didn't always take it, but she saw nothing wrong with at least hearing a person out. "I'd love some advice."

"I've never visited Amaterasu's cave, but I've heard a person must pay to use it," she stated. "And just recently there have been rumors of a demon on the other side of the connecting bridge who attacks mikos... only mikos."

"That's strange. If you're going to kill mikos, why not kill the priests too? After all, both can kill a demon with magic." The miko frowned slightly but quickly brushed her worries aside. "Well, thank you. I appreciate the advice."

"You're welcome. Take care of yourself, and make sure to come back and see me," the stall keeper responded, a small smile on her face and a kind look in her deep brown eyes.

"I will," Kagome promised, her tone sincere. "And you take care of yourself, too." Smiling, she turned and began to walk off. After taking a few steps, she turned and waved to the woman, running into someone in the process.

Surprise apparent on her face, she fell to the ground with a small "Oomph." Guilt washed over her, mainly because it had been her fault that she had run into the person. She hadn't been watching where she had been going.

"It usually helps if you keep your eyes looking in the direction you're walking," a young male voice commented.

Kagome looked up to see Inuyasha standing above her, his arms crossed over his chest and an almost amused expression on his face. She blushed slightly. "Sorry about that."

The dog-eared boy offered her a hand. "It's okay, but I want to get going now," he responded. "With everything else the stupid Elves have thrown your way, they probably didn't give you much time to complete this quest either."

She accepted the hand, allowing him to pull her into a standing position. "Actually, I have a year," she informed him dusting the dirt off of her clothing.

"A year?!" Inuyasha exclaimed in surprise. "They gave me only ten days, but they gave you a year?!" It seemed unfair to him, even when he considered the fact that the miko was a newbie and he had been playing for two years.

"They certainly didn't give you much time," Kagome stated, eyes wide. "Most people have a month to complete the quest. I wonder why they didn't give you a month." Her expression turned thoughtful as she contemplated that question.

While the Elves were creative, they were big on being fair. They hated people who cheated, and any player who hacked into the game to give himself or herself an advantage were promptly deleted and banned from the game. Needless to say, she couldn't come up with a single reason for his short time limit. 

"I don't know why they did that, but next time I see a light bulb, I'm going to have the little sucker take them a message for me," he snapped. 

"You could always write them an email," the raven-haired miko suggested. It sounded logical to her. 

Inuyasha snorted. "And have it sit in their inbox for months as they sift through all their complaints? I don't think so." He shook his head. "C'mon. I'll deal with that later. We should get going." With that said, he began to walk off, easily working his way through the crowded streets. 

Kagome followed him, keeping practically on his heels. She wasn't about to lose the guy who was protecting her, so she stayed close to him. 

He led her right out of town and into a field just like the one they had been in when the dragon demon had attacked. No cave was in sight, but the miko guessed that it had to be close. After all, Inuyasha had said that the village was near the cave. 

As she walked through the field, Kagome had a forbidding sense, as if something bad was coming. It wasn't an obvious feeling, more like a tingling in the back of her mind, telling her to beware. Unsure of what to do since she had never sensed anything before, she ignored it. 

The wind shifted, and Inuyasha froze, turning his gaze skyward as he sniffed the air. "Hurroks," he whispered. "Get low and stay there." 

Brown eyes widened, surprised by what he had said. Hurroks were rare game-created AIs that were horse- like creatures with bat wings, claws instead of hooves, and fangs. They normally only appeared once a year in a group of about five or six. The main reason they were so rare was they were fast and strong, which was bad enough, but some of them had a incurable poison in their claws. The worst thing was that they were practically immune to magic.

The dog demon drew his sword, the piece of junk quickly transforming into its powerful fang-like state. He crouched down, golden eyes still scanning the skies. "Here they come," he informed her, a growl ripping its way from his throat and out his mouth as four flying black horses came out of the distance. 

When they were close enough for Kagome to see, she immediately noticed their huge leathery wings that were twice the size of their stallion-sized bodies. Dangerous red eyes framed with short black eyelashes stared down at her with a look that predators only gave their prey, causing her to shiver. The feeling of forbidding surrounded her, telling her exactly what she had sensed. She had felt the hurroks coming, although she didn't quite know why or how; however, she knew she had to worry about the questions later. Her first problem was the incoming enemies. 

Without caring whether her magic would have an effect or not, she drew an arrow out of her quiver and notched it, preparing to fire. As soon as the ugly AIs were close enough, she planned on shooting her bow and seeing just how quickly the creatures could dodge. If she was lucky, she would hit at least one. 

Once the hurroks were close enough, Inuyasha leapt up, swinging his sword at one. "Kaze no Kizu!" he shouted, and streams of orange power erupted out of his blade. The attack hit the flying monster head on, but it didn't seem to have any effect. The creature continued to fly around, swooping down to attack the dog demon.

Kagome fired her shaft, putting some of her magic behind it. The arrow grazed the back of one hurrok, but it hit another in the base of its left wing. The injured monster screamed in pain as its wing glowed for a moment and then vanished, leaving it without the ability to fly. It fell to the ground, crashing down about ten feet from the miko.

A little amazed that her magic had been so affective, she fired another arrow. She hit the fallen hurrok in the head, causing the rest of its body to glow and disappear, leaving only her arrow. At the sight of such success, a feeling of triumph rose up in her, but she forced it back down. She didn't have time to celebrate since there were three more hurroks flying around.

Inuyasha, after taking a few swipes at a dive-bombing hurrok with his sword, glanced over at Kagome to see how she was doing. She was busy taking aim at a flying monster high up the sky, completely missing the hurrok coming up behind her. 

"Kagome!" he screamed, ripping his attention away from his opponent to run to her aide. Knowing that he had little time, he leapt over the girl's head and into the air, his path perfect for a head on collision with the attacker. "Bakuryuuha!" He swung his blade at the creature that was charging at the miko's back.

Power erupted from his sword, engulfing the hurrok. When the power faded, so did the enemy, much to the dog demon's relief. He had half-expected the attack to fail just like the kaze no kizu had failed.

An evil smile on his face, he rushed to attack one of the last two hurroks as Kagome fired an arrow at the other one. Her target dodged, heading for Inuyasha as the arrow fell to the ground. Both hurroks raced towards the demon from opposite sides.

"Shit," Inuyasha snapped, knowing that he'd only be able to take out one with his new attack. He also understood that Kagome couldn't fire one of her arrows for fear of hitting him. Scowling, he dodged as best as he could; however, one of the hurroks pulled off an indescribable maneuver, raking his claws over the dog demon's shoulder, drawing blood.

Cursing, the silver-haired male swung his sword at the AI. "Bakuryuuha!" In another blast of power, the creature was gone.

Kagome fired two arrows in rapid succession, one hitting the final hurrok in the leg while the other buried in its neck. The AI glowed briefly before vanishing like he had never existed, leaving her arrows to fall to the ground.

Feeling pleased with herself, she gazed at the sky, finding no hurroks up there. The battle was over, and the hurroks had lost. She smiled, and turned to her ally. "We did it, Inuyasha!" she exclaimed happily. For the first time since she had started the game, she didn't feel so useless. 

"Yeah, we did," he responded, falling to his knees as he clutched at his wound with his free hand. His other hand held onto his sword, the action more subconscious than anything.

"Inuyasha!" Kagome ran to his side, helping him sit down on the grass. She examined the wound, her eyes filling with fear as it began to bubble. He had been poisoned by one of the hurroks. 

"Fucking hurrok had poison in his claws," Inuyasha grumbled, remembering exactly what that meant for him--death. He was going to die, and there wasn't anything he could do about it. He would just have to go through the whole stupid registration process again, and he was not looking forward to that. It had been tedious enough the first time. He doubted he would be lucky enough to start off from where he had last saved his game, especially since the Elves didn't even like him enough to give him a month to complete a quest. 

The miko watched the demon close his golden eyes. "Don't go to sleep, okay!" she ordered. "I'm going to see if I can do something about the poison."

He snorted, fighting between amusement and annoyance at her determination to do something that could no be done. "You can't, and you know it."

She violently shook her head. "I'm still going to try," she insisted. _'Well, my powers were highly effective against the hurroks themselves, so let's see what they can do with their poison.' _

Praying to the Japanese gods for a miracle, she placed her hands on his wound, allowing the blood to flow around and over her fingers. Closing her eyes, she gathered up her magic and applied a little to the area under her fingers. 

Inuyasha hissed in pain. She was a miko, and she was purifying him in her attempt to destroy the poison. "Stop it!" he snapped. "That hurts!"

"Oh, shut up," Kagome retorted. "It's not like the poison isn't hurting you already. We have nothing to lose by me trying!" She returned to what she was doing, shoving some of her power under his skin, trying to keep it from purifying him in the process. As the demon cussed her out for the useless pain she was putting him through, she felt something happen. She could sense something change.

A feeling of hope invading her heart, she forced as much of her magic as she could into him through the wound, sensing it flow through his entire body. She opened her eyes as she backed away, immediately noticing that the golden-eyed demon was glowing a faint purple-pink color, but his wound was gone, completely healed.

Inuyasha flexed his fingers, a smile creeping onto his face. He couldn't feel the poison anymore, and his whole body felt like it hadn't even gone through a battle. "Not bad," he commented, standing up and sheathing his sword. "It seems like the trade-off for not sensing demons is that you have some powers that are a little different from a normal miko's." 

Kagome stood up to take another look at his shoulder. It seemed perfectly fine. "I hope you're not complaining," she stated. "Because I think me being different just saved your butt."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," he muttered, turning towards the east. "Now, let's get to that cave." He began walking, the miko following him. "It's about a half mile away." 

She didn't respond because she was seething on the inside. _ 'I save his life, and he can't even say thank you?! What is his problem?' _she wondered. His lack of manners annoyed her, but she figured she wouldn't receive any thanks from him unless she forced it out of him.

Kagome was in the process of mentally calling Inuyasha some rather creative names when they finally came upon the cave. It stood in the middle of the field with a single tree growing just outside the mouth. A life-sized statue to Amaterasu stood outside, and a small platform stood at its base, giving players a place to put their offerings to the sun goddess.

Remembering the stall keeper's words, the miko hung back as the demon continued to charge forward. "Inuyasha... I think we're supposed to pay for entrance," she informed him.

Inuyasha ignored her. "Feh." He took one last step that would bring him into the cave, but instead of entering, he hit an invisible wall. "What the hell?" he exclaimed, slashing at the barrier with his claws. It didn't seem to do any good, because he still couldn't enter the cave.

Kagome walked up to stand near the mouth, looking around for any reason for the barrier. The only things she could see other than her and the golden-eyed male were the statue and the tree. Figuring that the tree wasn't all that important, she turned her attention to the statue.

The statue was beautifully crafted out of light stone, and she could see even the finest details, right down to the eyelashes. Her gaze drifted down to the platform, finally noticing that there were words chiseled into the surface. She read the message and sighed. 

"What?" Inuyasha snapped, crossing his arms. "Are you done examining that worthless thing?" 

"It's not worthless," she shot back. "And this is the reason we can't enter. We're supposed to offer something of beauty to the sun goddess before we can enter the cave."

"Something of beauty?" he repeated, scowling. He didn't like the idea of having to offer anything just to simply travel to another world. It seemed stupid to him. "I knew there was a reason I've never used this cave before."

Kagome chewed delicately on her bottom lip, trying to think of something. Suddenly she was hit by a bolt of inspiration, making her eyes light up. She took the red blossom from behind her ear and placed it on the platform, congratulating herself for keeping the lovely flower even though she hadn't known it would come in handy. 

The flower vanished, and she stared in shock. _ 'What happened to my flower?!' _she wondered, reaching down to hesitantly touch where the object had once been. She felt only the stone surface of the platform. "Well, I guess the offering was accepted."

Inuyasha studied her for a moment before trying to enter the cave, easily succeeding. The wall had disappeared, much to his surprise. He had thought the offering thing was a huge joke.

Kagome followed the demon, having no problem walking into the cave as well. She smiled, partially because she had done well to accept the stall keeper's advice. _ 'Ten points for me,' _she thought with a mall amount of humor. _ 'I'll have to really thank her next time I'm in that village.' _

Then, the two found the connecting bridge, which was a hole in the floor, and jumped down it.

  


* * *

  


A woman with long blond hair smiled at two others, the look of ancient wisdom in her eyes practically glowing as she pointed down to the reflecting pool, which just happened to show an image of Inuyasha and Kagome falling down the hole to Ancient Greece. "It has begun."

  
  


* * *

  
  


* * *

  
  


CotA: Yea!! Chapter two! I was amazed by how fast I wrote this. :) But please don't get used to this speed. I haven't even started on chapter three, and it's probably going to be just as long as this chappie... maybe even longer. Oh, and I'm going to make the same offer I usually make. If you want, I'll send you an email whenever I update. For those of you who are on my mailing list and want off, just send me an email and I'll remove you. Well, I believe that's all.

Sess-chan: Not quite. The review responses are below.

PWA: Wow! I've never seen you so enthusiastic. I just hope that my other chapters excite you just as much.

Sakura-chan: I know exactly where this story is going... for once. Since I've planned out the entire thing, chapter by chapter, I have an easy to follow game plan.

Yanou: I've combined ideas from all different sources. .Hack//Sign is one of them, Tamora Pierce is another, and Diadem is a third.

Silentslayer: I'm glad you like this so far. If you can't tell, I worked hard on the first chapter.

Inu-chan 613: I don't believe originals are all that weird. And I'm not going to tell you what happens in the end. You'll just have to read and find out.

dog demon: Thank you for the compliment. I do try to be creative.

Demongirl6381: I'll update as soon as I can, okay?

ME: "twist"? I'm guessing that you're referring to the fact that they're in a virtual world.

Drake220: I've never heard of the Otherland books, but I think I've heard of the Dragonbone chair. I may just have to check them out from the library or something... well, if they have them that it.

Salamander: I'll try my best not to leave you hanging... although I do have a habit of using cliffhangers.

Pinkjasmine: I will continue, but I don't know about the fast thing.

Flowerblossom: I'm happy too. I like this story better than my Rome one, if only because I know exactly what's going to happen in it and everything. This is an Inu/Kag, and if they get hurt in VR, they don't get hurt in real life, so you don't need to worry.

Eruinichil: I'm not going to tell you much, but I will say that you'll get to see Sesshoumaru eventually. :) And I'm not really sure about longer. This story is going to be 10 chapters plus an epilogue. I can tell you that I'm not going to leave it off, especially since everything is planned out.

Voldy's Lover(Yummy): Thanks.

Sieyo- san: I tried to come up with something original enough that people wouldn't say I stole another ff.net writer's idea.

Raining Fire: Thanks! ^_^ It's nice to get such positive responses from my readers. I appreciate all the support.

Kittymui: Yes, I know .hack//sign. I've seen a few episodes, and that was just one of my inspirations. 


	3. Chapter 3

Virtual Reality 

Chapter Three

Kagome gasped as she fell into the shallows of a large body of water, the cold, salty liquid soaking her slippers and the hem of her pants. The water was clear, revealing sand beneath her feet and little pieces of sea plants floating around her. Two feet away from her was the dry beach, and further out to the west was a dirt trail that appeared to have been made by wild animals walking over the same path multiple times. The beach around her was nothing more than ten feet of clean, yellow sand, which quickly gave way to cliffs to the north and south and a grassy, small strip of land which contained the dirt path about twenty feet wide that was wedged between the two cliffs. The strip of grassy land almost looked like a valley in-between two mountains... two small mountains.

Inuyasha was already out of the water and walking across the beach to the path, the sand clinging to his wet bare feet. "Are you coming already?!" he hollered over his shoulder.

Sighing, she quickly jogged out of the water and up to him. He could be loud and rude when he wanted to be, that was for sure. "Inuyasha, I have to tell you something," she said, voice tense. She had just remembered the other piece of the stall keeper's advice, which she had to relay to her ally. 

"What is it?" the dog demon responded, briefly glancing back at her. He saw a look of worry in her eyes, so he paid attention. Even in the short amount of time he had known her, he had grown to believe she wouldn't burden him with stupid or useless information.

"Someone I met in the village said that there's a demon around here who kills mikos and only mikos," Kagome informed him, praying that he would promise to protect her. She didn't want to die.

"I guess I have nothing to worry about then," Inuyasha stated gruffly, but when she punched his back, he chuckled. "I was just joking, Kagome, so relax. I'm not going to let some demon kill you."

She breathed a sigh in relief, a small smile appearing on her face. It had felt good to hear those words. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," he replied, suddenly stopping and smelling the wind. "A demon, right?"

Kagome nodded, her brown eyes serious. "Yes. Why? Can you smell him?"

"I do smell a demon, but I'm not sure if it's the one you were talking about," Inuyasha answered.

"I hope not." She shivered. "If the demon is capable of killing enough mikos to gain a reputation, then I don't want to meet up with him or her."

He frowned. "Well, we're going to find out who it is soon enough, because the smell is coming closer." Without thinking, he placed himself between Kagome and where the demon would probably approach from. He was going to keep his promise to her no matter what. No demon was going to take her life as long as he was around.

"Oh me, oh my! Look at what we have here!" a light female voice exclaimed, and air-headed giggling following that statement. "A miko and a little inu hanyou. How quaint."

"Show yourself!" Inuyasha demanded, his hand automatically going to his sword. For some reason or another, he didn't trust the female demon, even though he had only heard her voice. There was just something about the way she spoke that made him not trust her. 

"That was rude of you," she complained. "Don't you know how to speak to a lady?" A woman with shoulder-length black hair in a short, low-cut, v-neck black dress appeared at the top of the northern cliff. She stood there, a single short sword at her side.

"Who are you, and what are you doing here?" the dog demon wanted to know. _'I can't just attack her for no reason. I have to find out if she's our enemy.' _ "Oh my... so you finally got around to asking me that." She smiled. "I'm Yura of the Hair, and I've been given the quest to guard this path for a month and keep those who are unworthy of seeing the Oracle from well... seeing her." She giggled. "You see, this path leads straight to Sacred Way, the road that leads to the Temple of Apollo."

"And how do you figure out who's unworthy and who's not?" Kagome inquired, although she had a good guess. More than likely, Yura fought with the any and all travelers.

"Simple, I let the demons and priests pass, and I kill the mikos. Demons are automatically worthy, because they're strong and the priests usually go to Delphi to serve in the temple, but mikos are just pathetic human females who can kill demons. I don't like mikos," Yura stated, glaring down at Kagome. "So, hanyou, you can keep going, but the girl has to stay here."

"No," Inuyasha retorted. "I'm not going anywhere." 

"Oh me, oh my. I guess that means I'll have to kill you both." Shrugging, the black-haired demon leapt from the cliff, drawing her sword in the process.

Kagome reacted by notching one of her arrows, and Inuyasha unsheathed his sword. The transformed blade blocked Yura's attack as Kagome's arrow sunk into the female demon's shoulder. Purple pink light briefly flashed as the raven-haired demon jumped back, pulling the arrow out, wincing only slightly.

"Now, that wasn't very nice," she mildly scolded. "You two should die like good little boys and girls are supposed to."

The miko stared in shock. _ 'Why didn't my arrow work? It did so much damage to the hurroks; yet, Yura wasn't barely even bothered by it.' _ Taking a deep breath, she fired another arrow at the demon.

Yura dodged the shaft without difficulty, landing about twenty feet away. "Oh my, oh me. I think I need to show you why I'm called Yura of the Hair." She sheathed her sword and then gestured at Inuyasha with one hand and Kagome with another. 

Suddenly, neither could move. Inuyasha tightened his grip on his sword, trying to move his arms. For some reason, they were plastered to the sides of his body. He glanced over at Kagome to find her on sitting on the ground, her arms at her sides as well. She was acting as if her feet were tied together, and her arrows were scattered across the ground.

Kagome wiggled, attempting to untie herself. She failed, although she didn't know why. She could barely see what was wrapped around her, and all of it seemed to come from the enemy demon. Saying a quick prayer to the gods of Greece, she pushed some of her purification magic into the tiny cords. The magic had a little effect but not much. It would take time for her to break her way out of the cocoon she was in. 

Growling, he glared at the scantily-dressed demon, his golden eyes nothing but narrow slits. "What's going on?!" he demanded, fighting against the invisible cords that bound him.

Yura laughed, eyes twinkling. "Why, I've tied you up with hair." She smiled. "Now, who wants to die first? The miko? Or the hanyou?" She cocked her head to one side. "I think that you should!" Jerking her hand back, she watched the many strands of sharp hair tighten around the dog demon.

Inuyasha struggled against the tightening hairs, feeling each and every one press into his body. He couldn't move enough to use his sword to cut his bindings, not that he could even see what he needed to cut.

"Huh?" The black-haired demon blinked. "Oh my, it looks like you're stronger than I thought. My hair won't cut you." She sighed. "It seems that the miko will have to die first." With a shrug, she turned to Kagome. 

Kagome gasped, knowing that she couldn't free herself in time. She was doomed, doomed to die before she had even completed her quest. _ 'And I was even beginning to become used to Inuyasha.' _

"Let's make this slow." Yura smiled, tightening the hair's hold on Kagome until tiny wounds began to appear. Tiny sounds of pain came from the miko's lips, despite her efforts to force them back.

At the sight of Kagome's blood, Inuyasha's eyes turned red from anger. He could barely believe it. Yura was actually going to kill her right in front of him, was going to kill her right in front of the person who had promised to protect her. If he didn't do something soon, then she would die and his promise would be broken.

"Leave her alone!" he roared, using all his strength to finally break the hair around him. Before Yura could react, he was in the air, coming down at her with his sword. His silver hair whipped behind him, and his red eyes practically glowed, giving him a crazed look. "Kaze no Kizu!"

With a flash of orange power, Yura disappeared, leaving nothing but a crater where she had once been. Inuyasha stood there for a few minutes, allowing his rage to wash away. His eyes slowly bled back to normal, revealing the beautiful gold color once again.

As soon as his anger was gone, he went to Kagome's side. She was still sitting on the ground, gathering up her fallen arrows. He knelt down to help her. "Are you okay?" he inquired, handing her the few wooden shafts he had picked up.

She shrugged. "I'm okay; however, my outfit has seen better days." She smiled wistfully, glancing down at her torn hamaka pants and shirt.

"You can get a new outfit in the next village," Inuyasha replied, standing up. "For now, we need to keep going." He offered her a hand. 

Kagome sighed, dropping her arrows into her quiver. "I know, I know," she muttered, taking the offered hand, allowing him to pull her into a standing position.

As soon as he released her hand, he began to walk off, following the dirt path. Kagome followed. 

They walked along the dirt path until they came to another, wider path, which they assumed to be Sacred Way. After exchanging glances, they took the new path. It twisted this way and that, but it seemed to lead towards the north most of the time. Hours later, they were still walking. They took a break from the game for supper and then resumed traveling.

Inuyasha and Kagome talked a little but not too much, as they both had to stay on the alert for enemies. Fortunately, nothing happened, except for the fact they walked even more. Around eleven in the evening, they called it a night, logging off to go to sleep. 

  


* * *

The woman with long blond hair smiled softly. "They are progressing nicely," she commented, blue eyes twinkling. She placed one pale hand on the edge of the reflecting pool before glancing at the other two females in the room: one with raven hair and one with silver.

The black-haired woman shrugged, her black eyes watching the reflecting pool, which was showing what had happened during Kagome and Inuyasha's battle with Yura of the hair. "Yes, they are, but perhaps we should do something else?" She smiled as she dipped her dark fingers into the pool, destroying the image. 

"We've already thrown the hurroks at them... as well as made sure Yura was assigned a quest that would clash with theirs," the silver-haired one responded, her soft voice flowing through the air as her kind silver eyes gazed at the her two companions. "What more could we possibly do?" 

The raven-haired woman grinned mischievously at the other females, her dark eyes filled with images that hinted at her plans. "Easy. In the morning, we see how they deal with wyverns." 

  


* * *

Kagome yawned as she trudged behind Inuyasha bright and early in the morning. She was tired of walking, tired of not getting anywhere. So far, all she had seen were some trees, flowers, and shrubs... and grass, of course, lots of grass. She found it all boring.

Since the VR set was controlled by brain waves, if she was tired in the real world, then she was going to be sluggish and tired in the game world. It was just how it worked. Normally it wasn't a problem, but with the late night and early morning she had pulled, her feet were almost literally dragging.

"Inuyasha, do you have any idea how far away Delphi is?" she inquired, silently praying that it wasn't too far. She wanted to be there already so she could sit down and rest. 

The dog demon rolled his eyes, kneeling down on the ground. "If it will shut you up, then climb on," he ordered. Mornings were not his thing, as they were obviously not Kagome's thing either. Why they had agreed to meet so early, he didn't know; however, he didn't feel like listening to her complain at the moment, even though she had yet to utter anything that resembled a complaint. He just wasn't in the mood to chance it.

The miko had no problem obeying, wrapping her arms loosely around his shoulders. She rested her check against his shoulder, his face nuzzled against his neck. The position was rather comfortable, and she was quickly becoming used to it thanks to the previous rides she had received. "Thank you," she whispered, yawning again.

Inuyasha easily heard the kind words and blushed, glad that she couldn't see it. "Forget about it," he replied, beginning to race off.

_'He really is a softy at heart, isn't he?' _Kagome mused, a small smile on her face. _ 'I guess I did a good job when I made that deal with him. He's reliable, as well as strong. He did an excellent job of protecting me from Yura, and-' _

Her thoughts stopped dead when she felt a familiar forbidding sense in the back of her mind, jolting her completely awake. It was the exact same thing she had felt right before the hurroks had appeared.

"Inuyasha..." the miko began, voice tense.

"What is it this time?" the hanyou wanted to know, not sure if he was annoyed or pleased with the break of silence. He was leaning towards the former. 

"Something's coming," Kagome answered. "Something like the hurroks but... different."

Inuyasha glanced around and sniffed the wind, finding a funny smell in the air. He didn't like it. "How close are they?" he asked, searching the area with his golden eyes. 

She frowned thoughtfully. "I... don't know, but it's coming in fast." The forbidding sense was quickly growing stronger.

"Dammit!" the demon cursed, finally spotting Delphi off in the distance. It was quite a distance away though, and judging by the urgency in Kagome's voice, he doubted his ability to reach the place in time.

Kagome gasped when seven wyverns broke over the horizon, heading straight at her and her ally. Their powerful wings beat furiously fast, and their yellow on red eyes made them look like they were possessed. Above all, they looked like legless, flying dragons with spiked tails, and they were a little like the hurroks in the respect that they were strong and rare. Luckily, the wyverns were susceptible to magic, and they had no poison anywhere on their body; however, they could breath out a yellow fog that gave anyone who breathed it a nasty cough as well as blinded them for a few hours. On top of all that, they were fast... incredibly fast.

She watched the game AIs swarm overhead, amazed by their speed. It was great that she could harm them with magic, but it wouldn't do her any good if she couldn't hit one with her arrows. She hadn't learned how to fire her purification magic straight out of her hand, but she had a feeling that she needed to learn really soon.

Inuyasha came to a graceful stop, setting Kagome down and drawing his sword, which quickly transformed. He didn't know what was going on with all the attacks in the past few days, but he had an idea as to whom to ask--the Elves. _'They must really hate my guts to keep sending stuff like this after me.' _

He swung his sword at a dive-bombing wyvern, completely missing. Kagome tried shooting it with a purification arrow, but she was off by a few yards. The creatures were just too fast to hit the normal way, and it was back up in the sky with its friends before Kagome could even reach back for another arrow.

"Stupid fucking things are faster than my internet connection," the hanyou grumbled, scowling at the AIs overhead.

The miko almost laughed at that statement, highly doubting that anything could be faster than an internet connection, but she understood that it wasn't the time to laugh or even chuckle. If the wyverns came too close, then they'd shower her with their yellow breath, robbing her of her sight and ability to breath normally. If she lost her sight... well, she'd be dead meat. It was that simple.

Inuyasha, deciding that he didn't have time to mess around at all, figured it was time to use his new attack once again. "Bakuryuuha!" he cried out as he jumped up in the air, swinging his sword at the swarming monsters.

The flash of light and power surged forth, filling the area. When the sky was clear again, he realized that all but one of the wyverns had dodged. The flying beasts really were way too fast for anyone to defeat. 

"Kagome!" Inuyasha shouted, coming up with an idea. "Fire as many of your arrows as you can at them as fast as you can. I'll sneak up from behind while they're distracted." 

Kagome nodded, understanding perfectly. Within moments, she was rapidly firing arrow after arrow at the six wyverns, fighting the urge to growl every time they easily dodged. Luckily, they didn't seem to understand that her ally had disappeared, and they kept their attention centered on her. 

Three swooped down suddenly, heading straight towards her right as Inuyasha came up behind the other three in the air, preparing to use his powerful attack. 

Fear in her eyes, the miko dropped to the ground, narrowly avoiding being hit by spiked tails. She couldn't avoid the dangerous breath though. Her eyes watered slightly, and her throat felt a little scratchy as she breathed it the yellow patch of air, but it wasn't near as bad as she had thought it would be. 

"Bakuryuuha!" Inuyasha shouted as the female moved to stand up. The surge of power from his sword destroyed the three, unsuspecting AIs, but not before they sent a cloud of yellow breath Inuyasha's way. He couldn't help but breath it in, his eyes blurring badly and his throat burning. 

The silver-haired demon hit the ground hard, unable to see and coughing worse than he could ever imagine. It felt like he was going to cough up a lung. He was helpless, blind, and weak, not to mention he was in the middle of a battle. _'I'm doomed,' _he thought darkly, annoyed that he could be done in by stupid flying snakes. 

Kagome looked around for the three wyverns that had attacked her, hoping to find them within firing range, which she did. The only problem was, they were going after Inuyasha, who seemed to be completely defenseless at the moment. 

Determined to help her friend, she fired as many arrows as she could, hitting two of the AIs before she ran out of ammo. The wyvern turned to look at her for a moment but quickly resumed its previous course. 

"Inuyasha, move it!" she screamed, not knowing what else to do. "One's headed your way!" 

The hanyou tried to stand up and run away, but he couldn't stop hacking long enough to even try to stand up. Plus, he didn't know which way to run. He couldn't see the demon, his nose did no good because the wyvern scent was all over the place, and his ears were no good due to his loud cough. 

Kagome took a deep breath and pulled the string back on her bow without an arrow on it. "Please, Zeus, Hera, Apollo, Artemis, and whoever else is listening," she whispered. "Please, let this work." 

Not exactly knowing what to do, she forced her power out of her body and to the bow, letting it form a shaft of pure miko magic. The arrow glowed pink-purple, the form flickering slightly as she aimed. 

"Please, let me hit it." Saying one last prayer, she fired the arrow. She watched it arch through the air, flickering and sparkling as it did so. Little bolts of lightning came off of it as it began to fall, the head coming down at the wyvern. 

The wyvern was less than ten feet away from Inuyashsa, and the arrow was perhaps fifteen or more. The arrow wasn't going to make it. 

"No... please don't let him die. Please, pretty please just speed up," Kagome murmured, hands clasped together. She didn't want Inuyasha to die, especially when the arrow was so close to hitting the AI. She didn't want to lose her new friend and wonderful ally. His rude attitude no longer mattered, and all she could think about was his amazing voice, his soft heart, his beautiful eyes and hair, and his absolutely adorable ears. 

Right after she spoke, her arrow sped up, actually gaining ground on the wyvern. It was ten feet away, and then eight... five... and finally three.

When the wyvern was close to digging into Inuyasha's neck with its tail, the arrow hit home, causing the creature to disappear in a burst of purple-pink light. The last of the enemy was gone, and Inuyasha was still alive, as was she. 

Kagome couldn't help but smile as she ran over to check on her partner and ally. She knelt down beside him, checking him for wounds. He seemed unharmed, but his cough just wouldn't stop, and his eyes were watering, the excess moisture running down his cheeks.

"Inuyasha, I'm going to see what I can do about your cough and your eye problem," the miko stated, bringing forth what little energy she had left. She forced it into the hanyou's lungs, trying to destroy the yellow fog in them. She succeeded, allowing him to breath a little easier. He still coughed, but it wasn't anywhere near as bad as before.

With his lungs taken care of, she went to work on his eyes. She searched for the remains of the wyvern's breath but couldn't find any. The demon was merely experiencing the aftereffects, and there was nothing she could do. 

"Sorry, but I can't fix your eyes," Kagome said softly, voice sad. She hated not being able to help him, especially since he had helped her so much. "But they should heal on their own eventually." 

"We can't stay out here in the open," Inuyasha told her, frowning as he thought out loud. "Without my vision, I'm a sitting duck." 

"I could lead you to Delphi... if you wouldn't mind me doing that," she offered. 

He muttered a few things under his breath but eventually nodded. "Yeah, sure. I don't have much of a choice."

Since she had his permission, she placed his arm around her shoulders as hers hesitantly went to his waist. She wasn't sure if he'd draw away at the last second or not, and he thankfully didn't. The demon allowed her to help him stand up and lead him off down the road. 

  


* * *

Kagome and Inuyasha safely arrived in Delphi a few hours later without having any more problems. The going had been slow due to Inuyasha's loss of sight, but no demons had attacked and no AIs had appeared, making everything that much easier.

They went into Delphi through the main entrance, finding the place relatively busy. Most of the people walking around were priests instead of normal humans though, and all were players. Many of the men were dressed in black and purple robes, and some even had golden-colored staffs with clinking rings on the top. The priests meandered around, making offerings to the god Apollo, visiting the treasuries, or just talking to other men.

To the north she could see Mount Parnassus, the shining rocks, which were cliffs that served as a protective barrier between Delphi and the rest of Ancient Greece on the northern side. Far to the south she could see a mountain, which she knew to be called Mount Cirphis. 

Kagome continued to guide Inuyasha down the street, admiring the treasuries with Doric pillars and the many places for offering all along the road. It was a comfortable setting that made her feel safe. After all, everything around her just brought the fact to mind that Delphi was sacred to Apollo, meaning that it was under protection. No one was allowed to attack Delphi or anyone in Delphi. 

As the sun continued to draw close to its highest point, they walked west for a short amount of time until they came to an open place, at which time Sacred Way pulled a 180 turn and had them head back east. Kagome would have complained, but she didn't see any point in it. Since Inuyasha had been quiet, she decided to as well.

They went eastward until the road came to a wall and turned north. The miko growled slightly with annoyance. She knew that Sacred Way led straight to the Temple of Apollo, but she was tired of the road zigzagging back and forth. It was quickly growing tiresome, and it didn't help that the going was literally uphill all the way.

Kagome sighed when the path turned westward once again but figured she couldn't complain too much since she could finally see the temple. 

"We're almost there," she told Inuyasha, a smile on her face. 

"It's about time," he grumbled in reply. "It feels like we've been going in circles."

The miko huffed at that. "Didn't you trust me to keep us from doing that?" she snapped back.

Inuyasha's mouth froze as his brain considered the question. He did trust her, strangely enough, so he couldn't lie and say no, even though he wanted to. "Well... yes, I guess I trust you," he responded after a few moments. 

"You do?" Kagome blinked a few times in surprise, astonished by those words. She hadn't been expecting them. She had thought that he would say no and go on to grumble a little bit more. 

"Of course," he retorted. "Why wouldn't I?" 

"No reason." Shaking her head, she came to the front of the temple, pausing to stare up at it. The structure was magnificent with tall Doric columns and beautifully planned architecture. The pediments above the door depicted Apollo and the Muses on one side and Dionysus on the other, the quality of the artwork impressing the female. 

Tearing her gaze away from the architecture, Kagome led Inuyasha up the stone ramp and into the temple. The inside was spacious enough but filled with more Doric columns that supported the roof. Torches lit up the darker areas, making the area seem more inviting. Moral sayings had been carved into the walls, most of which she actually liked. Others were just too difficult for her to comprehend and therefore sounded silly.

Almost immediately, they were greeted by a priest dressed in the normal black and purple robes, his golden staff held in his left hand. He had pulled his black hair into a small ponytail at the nape of his neck, and his dark blue eyes stared out from underneath slightly arched black eyebrows. He had a polite smile on his face and a flirtatious look in his eyes.

"I'm Miroku, one of the priests that serve the Oracle. What can I do for you today?" he inquired, his middle-ranged voice sounding kind.

"We want to see the Oracle," Inuyasha stated roughly, finally noticing that his cough was gone. He couldn't see, but at least he could breath easily once again.

Miroku blinked. "I was talking to the lovely lady, who appears to be in some trouble." He paused. "May I ask your name and what happened to your clothes?"

"Oh, I'm Kagome, and Yura of the hair attacked us. My clothes were damaged during that battle," Kagome explained. "And it's Inuyasha's who's in some trouble. We were attacked by wyverns a little bit ago, and they breathed on him. His cough is much better, but his eye sight is still poor. Is there anything you can do to help?" 

"Hmmm... I don't know," the priest replied. "But for a beautiful woman like you, I'll see what I can do." He paused. "And if you have a question for the Oracle, I'll have Shippou bring you some paper and a pen so you can write it down." With a charming smile, he walked off. 

The raven-haired miko stood there for a few moments, contemplating what had just happened. _'Did he just flirt with me?' _she wondered. _ 'I think he did, but why would he do something like that? He doesn't even know me.' _

Shaking her head, she guided Inuyasha a few steps to the side, helping him sit down with his back to the wall. She sat down next to him, finding the stone floor a little uncomfortable.

"I don't like that guy... Miroku," the hanyou growled out. "He sounds unreliable."

"Really? I thought he seemed kind of sweet," Kagome replied. "He was nice enough to ask what had happened to me."

"And rude enough to pretty much ignore me," Inuyasha snapped, crossing his arms. "All I have to say is this Shippou person better appear soon or I'm going to be teaching a priest a lesson." 

"Did someone call for me?" a boyish voice inquired as a short, red-headed boy came into view carrying a piece of parchment, a quill, and a bottle of ink. His bright green eyes shone with youthful exuberance, a pair of red fox ears twitching on top of his head and a tail swishing back and forth behind him. He was dressed in dark blue pants, a medium blue shirt with light blue leaves on it, and a tan fur vest. 

"Are you Shippou?" Kagome asked, earning a nod from him. "I'm Kagome, and this is Inuyasha." 

"It's very nice to meet you. You're very pretty," he commented. "And I brought the things you need to write down your question." He placed the items in front of her. 

All questions had to be written down and presented to the Oracle by the priests in such a form. Then, after chewing on a plant and drinking some sacred water, the Oracle would go into a trance and answer the question.

She smiled affectionately at him. "Thank you. You're very cute." She gently patted him on the head and set about writing down her question. 

Shippou sat down next to her, watching her as she quickly scrawled out a few words. He liked watching her, because she seemed so nice. She had been sweet toward him so far, and he wanted to stay near her. 

Kagome finished writing down her question right as Miroku reappeared, a cup of something in his hand. He was smiling, his eyes on the female as he knelt down. 

"I have returned with something to help your friend's sight," the priest stated. "It will taste bitter, but Mushin says it should heal whatever damage was done to his eyes." He placed the cup in the hanyou's hands.

Inuyasha brought it up to his lips, drinking it down in one gulp. He regretted that action a moment later, making a face at how horrible the liquid had tasted. It was a mix between crab apples (which he had been stupid enough to ask his house for when he had been younger), green tea, lemon, and something else he couldn't describe.

"What was that?!" the demon demanded angrily. "Are you trying to poison me or something?!" 

Miroku chuckled. "No, but perhaps I should have warned you about the flavor. I have heard that it is rather tart." 

"_Tart?!_" he repeated, almost sputtering. That statement sounded ludicrous to his ears. Only tart? The drink had tasted down right horrid, like something from a swamp.

"I don't think he liked it," Shippou commented, snickering, causing Kagome to giggle softly. 

"Yes, tart," the priest replied, turning to the miko. "So, have you finished writing everything down?" 

Kagome nodded, handing the piece of parchment to him. "Yes, thank you." She paused. "About how long will it take to receive an answer?" 

"At least a week," Miroku answered. 

"WHAT?!" Inuyasha exclaimed in shock, unsure if he had heard the male correctly or not. 

"Because of all the questions the Oracle is being presented with, it will take at least a week," he clarified. "Of course, if you do something for me, then I'll make sure you have an answer by tomorrow." 

The raven-haired miko studied the priest for a moment. "And what exactly is this something?" 

Miroku placed the parchment on the inside of his robe and took one of Kagome's hands, his face serious, endearing, and charming all at once. He gave her hand a gentle squeeze before opening his mouth again. 

"Here it comes," Shippou whispered softly, knowing exactly what the priest was going to say. 

"Kagome," the holy man began. "Will you do me the honor of bearing my child?"

Kagome was so surprised that she just sat there in shock; however, Inuyasha reacted a little differently. He reached out and snatched her hand away from his, scowling.

"She isn't going to bear anyone's child, okay?!" the hanyou snapped, pleased that his eyesight had already improved enough that he could easily make out different shapes and colors. "This is a game, so she can't bear your child anyway!"

"Shot down again, huh?" Shippou declared triumphantly, a large smile on his face. He was expecting a slap to come, as it usually did. The priest was known for his wandering hands and his strange question. 

Miroku laughed. "But she could give birth to my child in the real world." 

"I don't think so," Kagome stated firmly, chocolate eyes serious. "I'm not ready to have a child. I don't want a child." She paused, making sure he had understood what she had said. "We'll wait a week." 

"Very well." The black-haired priest sighed sadly, standing up. He had been hoping for a positive answer just once. "When the Oracle has given an answer, I will find you two. I suggest you stay in Delphi until then." He suddenly smiled. "I'll be seeing you later, Kagome."

The miko watched him walk off and shook her head. After a moment, she looked down at Shippou. "Is he always like this."

The fox-eared boy nodded. "Yep. He asks every female that."

Inuyasha growled. "Then there is no way he's going to be seeing Kagome again, absolutely no fucking way." 

  


* * *

  


* * *

  


* * *

  


* * *

CotA: Well, 5,800 words later, I have a new chapter complete with two battle scenes (which means that I finally classified a story correctly for once. Yea for me!), the arrival of two more Inuyasha characters, and the lovely reappearance of the three strange people. I hope you people are happy. This chapter took forever to write, partically because I had to figure out what Delphi looked like, and more specifically, the temple. However, I'm very proud of this. It turned out rather well in my opinion. By the way, Sess-chan, Sigmund, why are those three strange people picking on Inuyasha and Kagome? I don't understand.

Sigmund: That's our secret. 

Sess-chan: But I'd be willing to tell you for a price.

CotA: A price? *blinks* What exactly do you want?

Sess-chan: *whispers something in CotA's ear*

CotA: *blushing* If that's it, I guess so. *walks off with Sess-chan*

Sigmund: *staring* Um... I guess I get to say that- *gets cut off by Sess-chan*

Sess-chan: *shouting from off in the distance* The review responses are below.

Rebecca: You'll get to see Sango eventually, the same as Sesshoumaru. I'm trying to figure out a way to work in Kouga and a few others. I'm also trying to include some actual history, although finding information on exactly where in Delphi the Oracle had once been was hard to find; however, the method for asking questions and receiving answers is pretty close to the truth. :) I don't like doing research too much, but I am willing to do some for my stories.

Silentslayer: Thanks. I appreciate the compliment. ^_^ 

ME: Love every bit? Why don't you wait until you've read all of it before you say that?

Flowerblossom: I like almost all pairings, which is just a little strange. I love Sess/Kag, Inu/Kag, Kouga/Kag, Miroku/Kag, and I've even read one Shippou/Kag that took place after he grew up. It was pretty good, and I'll probably go back and read through it again soon, which is saying quite a bit for me. I usually only read through a fanfic once and then never look at it again.

Inu-chan 613: I don't update fast. The last chapter was an anomaly... nothing more. And this story's rated R for violence, cussing, and whatever I decide to throw in as little extras at the last minute. That's kinda what happened with the hurroks. I had not been planning on using them, but I thought "hey, why not?" So, they... appeared, and they definitely served a purpose. You'll have to wait and see what that purpose was.

Kittymui: I'll update asap, as usual. You should know me well enough to know that.

Drake220: Of course Kagome's not totally useless. And the kaze no kizu didn't work because the attack wasn't strong enough. I think I said something about the hurroks being powerful, which is the main reason. I didn't say that they showed up only once a year for nothing. If they were normal, everyday monsters, then they'd end up devastating the game world.

Raining Fire: You want the collar? Okay. *hands Raining Fire the jeweled collar* I hope you like it. Oh, and that wasn't Sango... it was Kikyou. *laughs nervously* I don't like her much when she comes back, but before she died, she was an okay person. I decided to use that version of her. 

Jo: Thanks for reviewing. You should added to my list, but if you didn't receive an email, tell me please. Sometimes, yahoo acts up on me.

Demongirl6381: Thanks... although I'm not sure I deserve that compliement.

Sakura onto Hitomi: I always seem to have a few errors, but in such a long chapter, it's hard to catch them all. Thanks for reviewing. *hugs Sakura-chan* I can't wait to hear from you again. Hearing compliments from a great authoress like you really means a lot to me.

Miaka Kiri: Thanks. I was hoping that at least a few people would consider the VR world cool. I think it's pretty intereting, at least.

PWA: Okay, I know this is a bit late, but happy birthday! I remember when I turned sixteen. Maybe that's because the day sucked. I had to go to school on my b-day. Well, I hope you had a good birthday.

Dog demon: Yeah, I guess Inuyasha does dislike the Elves quite a bit. He really seems to enjoy insulting them. I guess I didn't notice because I was just too busy typing. I tend to do that. *shrugs* Oh well. 

Sashlea: I have tried to make this story more detailed than any of my others. It's hard and takes time, but I believe it's worth it.

Eruinichil: I guess I kinda see Inuyasha as a jerk, so that's how I portray him most of the time. And Sesshoumaru isn't coming in until the... *looks at chapter summaries* sixth chapter. Sorry, but he isn't a major character in this.

PhoenixIsis: I can understand that this idea is not totally original. I stole stuff from two different book series and two different tv shows. However, I think this is a little more original than my other Inuyasha stories.

Kim: Thanks. I am trying to keep everyone in character, but it tends to be a problem with me. 

Yanou: There may be a connection; there might not be one. I'm not telling, though. It's a secret. You'll just have to wait and find out. And you'll find out if the blond chick was one of the Elves or not when you meet the council. Unfortunately, you don't get to meet them until chapter ten. ^^; 

Sterling: Wow, I put someone at a loss for words. I guess I'm doing okay then. ^_^ 

Mitsuki-kun: Yes, the shopkeeper was Kikyou. All your other questions you'll just have to wait for answers. 


	4. Chapter 4

Virtual Reality

Chapter Four 

"I wonder how much longer we'll have to wait?" Kagome mused out loud, sitting down outside the temple beside Inuyasha. She tugged lightly on her new red hamaka pants and white shirt. After her battle with Yura, she had bought another outfit, although miko clothing had been a little hard to find in Delphi. The area had more places to buy priest clothing than anything.

It had been a week since they had submitted their question, and they both felt that it was time for them to receive their answer. Even though Kagome had refused Miroku's help, they understood that they should have had a response from the Oracle at the end of the seventh day. She couldn't think of a single reason why everything was taking so long; however, Inuyasha could.

The hanyou shrugged. "I don't know, but I bet the stupid Elves have something to do with the delay," he grumbled. He was tired of waiting, tired of just sitting around, especially since his vision was perfect again. The first few days of relaxation with his slightly poor eyesight had been nice, but he wanted something to do. The only thing he had done for the past week was wander around Delphi and talk to Kagome, making sure she kept her distance from Miroku. He finally considered the miko a close friend, especially since she seemed to understand him so well. She knew his likes and dislikes, his pet peeves, and a few other things about him that kept her from pressing his buttons constantly. 

"Have you already sent them an email?" she inquired, looking up at the sky as it slowly changed from bright blue to red and orange. The sun was setting, bringing another day to a close, and they were still waiting.

He nodded. "Yeah, and they haven't sent me anything back yet, the lazy bums," he responded gruffly. 

Kagome giggled softly, amused by his comment. "I'm sure they're not as lazy as you think. You never know, maybe they're dealing with more emails and problems than we could ever imagine." She smiled at him, the expression kind. "But if we want to know about the condition of our question, we could probably just ask Miroku. He might tell us something."

"No," Inuyasha stated immediately, fully against the idea of giving the priest another chance to hit on the girl. "We'll just wait."

The miko blinked. "Could we ask Shippou then? He could probably find out," she suggested. The fox demon had been appearing and disappearing over the past week, which had annoyed the hanyou. The little redheaded boy had entertained her and tormented the dog demon with illusions galore, and the strangest thing was that he was an actual player. Most little kids were AIs, but Shippou lived in the real world. What he was doing in the game, she didn't know. She wanted to find out though. Ancient Worlds wasn't exactly a child's game. 

The inu hanyou frowned thoughtfully, actually considering the question. The fox demon was annoying, but he could probably prove to be helpful. Also, he was much better than the perverted priest when it came to being around Kagome. "Alright. The next time we see him, we'll ask."

"Thank you," Kagome replied sweetly, yawning. "I wonder if he's still on, or if he's already logged off." 

Inuyasha shrugged. "Don't know, but Shippou's probably gone by now. He's so little that-" He was promptly cut off by a young voice.

"Hey! Who you callin' little?!" Shippou protested, landing on top of the hanyou's head. He tugged on the inu youkai's ears, frowning slightly. "I'm not little."

"What do you think your doing?" the hanyou demanded, grabbing the fox demon by the tail and pulling him off of his head. 

"Put me down. Put me down!" the redhead shouted, trying to punch his captor.

Kagome sighed. "Be nice, Inuyasha," she gently ordered, taking the fox demon out of her ally's hands. "He's just a kid."

"Yeah!" Shippou nodded his head affirmatively, smiling mischievously at the other male. "Be nice!" 

Inuyasha crossed his arms and turned his head to the side. "Feh. You're not worth my time."

The fox demon was going to shout some kind of retort when Kagome stopped him. "Shippou, what are you doing here?"

Green eyes stared into brown ones. "Oh yeah! The Oracle gave her answer, so you can go on in anytime and get it."

Standing up, the hanyou looked down at his friend and ally. "C'mon. We'd better get it before the ugly old crone decides to not let us have it," he stated, taking a few steps into the temple.

"You shouldn't talk that way about people," the miko advised, jogging to catch up with him, Shippou still in her arms. "It isn't nice."

"So?" Inuyasha retorted simply. He didn't see what the big deal was, especially since the Oracle was only an AI. It wasn't like some stupid game-created AI cared about what people called her.

Kagome rolled her eyes. "So you shouldn't be rude to people," she informed him.

"Yeah!" Shippou added smartly, nodding his head to emphasize his point. He didn't care what the two were arguing about, but he wanted to side with Kagome. He knew that she was most likely right.

"Great. Now they're ganging up on me," the inu hanyou grumbled to himself, glaring at the fox demon. "I don't suppose you could tell us where in this temple we're supposed to pick up our answer?" 

"Duh. Of course I know," the redheaded boy shot back. "Follow me!" He jumped out of Kagome's arms and raced off. The other two chased after him, quickly finding themselves in a small room. A scroll with their names on it sat in the corner. Shippou brought it to them.

"Thank you," Kagome said gratefully, accepting the scroll from him. An expression of concentration on her face, she read the words written on the paper in her hands. When she finished, she shook her head and handed it to Inuyasha. "I don't believe it."

"What?" the hanyou asked, frowning. What in the world didn't she believe? Was the Shikon no Tama out in space or something?

His curiosity aroused, he read the scroll. Once he finished reading it, he read through it three more times, not sure if he wanted to believe what was written.

Shippou jumped up on Inuyasha's shoulder to see what was going on. "What does it say?" he wanted to know, green eyes staring at the paper.

"Read it for yourself." Inuyasha handed the scroll to the child, scowling. "We just got royally screwed over."

"The treasure you seek is hidden in another land. To find out which one, seek out the ruler of a desert world where a lion with a human head guards a plateau," the fox demon read out loud. "Lion with a human head? Where'd the Oracle come up with that?" 

The hanyou sighed. "It's a sphinx," he informed the redheaded boy. "A lion with a human head is called a sphinx. They're supposed to give travelers a riddle. If the traveler answers correctly, then he gets to live. If he doesn't, then he dies."

Shippou made a face. "That doesn't sound nice."

"A desert world with a sphinx means we're going to Egypt," Kagome said with a sigh. "More traveling."

Inuyasha rubbed his eyes. "We'll deal with it in the morning."

"Okay." The miko nodded her head in agreement, unwilling to argue with him. "Goodnight then, Inuyasha." 

"See you at seven," he replied, smiling slightly at her right before he logged off. As soon as the hanyou was gone, Kagome patted Shippou on the head. "Thanks for everything." Then, she logged off as well and went to bed. 

  


* * *

Promptly at seven in the morning, both Kagome and Inuyasha were back in the game, ready to head out. The hanyou stretched a little as the miko attempted to fully wake up; however, she failed, finding herself sitting on the ground and yawning instead of partaking in the stretching exercises the demon was going through. 

"Any idea on how to get to Egypt?" Kagome inquired, leaning back against one the pillars of the temple. 

He nodded his head, sitting down next to her. "The easiest way is to go north to Norway and then go southeast to Egypt. Last time I checked, there was no bridge connecting Greece and Egypt," he replied, fingering the hilt of his sword. "And I don't like Norway."

"Why not?" she wanted to know. He had never mentioned hating Norway before, so she was curious as to what had soured him to that world. 

"First off, it's cold there year round for some strange reason," Inuyasha told her. "And secondly, there's monsters there that I don't like dealing with. They have frost giants, dwarves, and elves, and I really don't like dealing with all of them. They make traveling through Norway slow and painful." 

"There's probably a glitch in the programming," Kagome commented. "I'll e-mail the Elven Council about it later."

"You do that," he responded. "But for right now, we need to get going." He moved until he was kneeling down in front of the raven-haired miko. "Get on."

She nodded and did as he said, finding the action familiar to her. It seemed perfectly natural for her to climb onto his back, and she didn't mind that at all. In fact, she was rather pleased by it. 

As soon as the female was settled, Inuyasha took off, running at top speed. He wanted to get to Egypt as quickly as possible, especially since they had wasted so much time in Delphi. Making up for lost time sounded like a good idea to him, so he hurried.

Before he had even traveled a mile, Kagome was dead asleep. It was easy to tell when she drifted off into dreamland because her hold on him relaxed, which Inuyasha reacted to by making sure he had a good grip on her. After all, he didn't want to drop her or let her fall off of his back was he was running at top speed. 

  


* * *

By the time Inuyasha reached the connecting bridge, Kagome had woken up. She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and glanced around at her surroundings. They were at the edge of a rich, green forest, the sounds of many different animals floating through the air. She could smell flowers as well as see them, their brightly colored petals brightening up the green areas; however, the thing that attracted her attention the most was a rainbow bridge right in front of her. It was huge, about forty feet wide as well as so long she couldn't see the other end of it, and it shone with all the colors of the rainbow. Actually, it almost glowed. 

"Isn't that Bifrost Bridge?" the miko inquired as Inuyasha set her down. She wasn't sure if she was right or not, but the bridge appeared to be the one out of Norse mythology.

"Yeah," he replied, his hand going to the hilt of his sword. "It connects Greece to Norway." He smelled demons, but he couldn't tell how many there were or how far away there were. They didn't smell nice though, so he was preparing for battle. The scent of virtual blood was never a good sign.

"Why? Isn't it supposed to connect the land of the frost giants to midgard?" Kagome asked, sounding curious. She had yet to notice his wary actions.

"In mythology? Yes. Here? No." Inuyasha drew his sword, eyes darting around. "Demons are coming, four of them."

Kagome's brown eyes widened a little. "How strong are they?" she asked, sounding a little worried. She didn't like fighting demons. Her magic had so little effect on them that she would have rather fought against a hundred hurroks and wyverns before battling against even one demon.

"I don't know!" he snapped, growling for a moment at her. "You're the miko! Not me!"

"Oh," she replied sheepishly. 

Suddenly, two demons came out of the forest while two more flew down from the sky. The two that came out of the forest had long hair and cold eyes. One was much smaller than the other, reminding Kagome of a praying mantis without legs. He flew through the air alongside the other long-haired demon, who appeared to be normal sized and dressed in a kimono shirt and hamaka pants.

The two demons in the sky circled around. One was bald (well, almost bald. He had a little hair) and rather ugly, resembling a pale yellowish frog when it came to his facial features. He was dressed in Japanese-style clothes and sitting on a cloud. The other had long black hair in a braid and evil eyes. He wasn't too bad looking, but Kagome had to admit that Inuyasha was much more handsome. The second flying demon used small flaming wheels by his feet to fly, although how they worked, she didn't know and couldn't figure out.

"I hate mikos and hanyous, don't you, brother Hiten?" the demon on the cloud inquired.

The demon with the black braid smirked. "Yes, Manten, I do."

"Then perhaps they should die!" the small praying mantis demon stated, launching at Kagome and Inuyasha. At the same time, the other nameless demon attacked.

Kagome and Inuyasha busied themselves dodging the quick attacks that the two demons were sending their way, almost completely forgetting about the two demons overhead. Since neither had attacked yet, they weren't quite a threat; however, Hiten and Manten planned on changing that. 

They both flew down, Manten jumping off of his cloud and blasting Inuyasha with lighting as Hiten went after Kagome. She ducked, letting the black-haired demon sail overhead, totally missing her; however, Inuyasha wasn't as lucky. While trying to dodge the two nameless demons, he ended up getting hit with the lightning. The attack stung, but the hanyou felt that it definitely could have been worse. He had been hit with stronger attacks, much stronger attacks.

"I suggest you try something else!" Inuyasha shouted, swinging his sword at Manten. The demon tried to dodge and almost succeeded; however, he wasn't quite fast enough. The inu hanyou ended up cutting off his arm.

Howling in pain, Manten fired more lightning blasts out of his mouth at the dog demon. Inuyasha nimbly dodged every one of them, but he had more trouble when Hiten joined in with his lighting spear. The lightning attacks from the two were rather weak, so if he was hit, it wasn't a too big of deal.

Kagome fired arrow after arrow at the two other demons, who she had found out from them were named Kageroumaru and Juuroumaru. They were also brothers that worked as a tag team... an incredibly good tag team. While the miko dealt with one, the other would attack, and as soon as her attention shifted, the first demon would strike her. 

"Hold still," she ordered them, trying to hit them with her arrows. They were so fast that she just couldn't seem to send even one shaft into them, and it didn't help that Inuyasha was occupied with the other two demons, Hiten and Manten. _ 'Please let Inuyasha be strong enough to finish them all off,' _she silently pleaded. _'Please, please, please.' _

Inuyasha struck out at Hiten with his sword, but the black-haired demon dodged by flying up into the air. Manten and the other sent off a series of lightning attacks, all of which the hanyou dodged; however, someone else did not.

A female scream filled the air, causing Inuyasha to panic. Kagome had been hurt, which meant that he had not been doing his job of protecting her. He turned to rush to her side, but Hiten and Manten stopped him.

"Where do you think you're going?" Hiten wanted to know, throwing another lightning bolt at the inu youkai. "We're not done with you yet."

"But I'm done with you!" Inuyasha retorted. "Kaze no Kizu!" With a burst of power, both Hiten and Manten disappeared, becoming nothing but specks of dust.

Then, since they were gone, Inuyasha raced to help Kagome. He found her dealing with the smaller, praying mantis demon. The other demon had been hit by one of the lightning bolts that hadn't been aimed well, and so he was now dead. The miko had been partially hit by a lightning attack, one of her ankles looking like it was in pretty bad shape. Because of her injury, she was sitting on the ground, dodging the last demon as best as she could and fire arrows at him at the same time.

Growling, Inuyasha swung his sword once at the last demon, cutting him in half. The idiot hadn't been paying enough attention to his surroundings, which had obviously led to his death. Of course, the hanyou didn't feel bad at all about all the deaths he had just caused. They had attacked him first and tried to kill Kagome. 

"How bad is your ankle?" he asked the female, kneeling down to get a better look at the wounded area. 

She winced. "I can't walk on it, that's for sure. It should heal in time though, and I have some plants with me that should help," she answered, trying to smile at him.

"Good," the silver-haired male replied. "Use them, and I'll carry you until you can walk again."

Kagome reached over and hugged him. "Thank you, Inuyasha, for saving me and being such a big help," she said gratefully, releasing him just in time to see his bright red blush. For a brief moment, he was the same color as his outfit. 

"No problem," Inuyasha responded, getting up to gather her arrows. "But hurry up, okay? I want to get going soon."

"Okay." Smiling, the miko pulled the plants she needed out of her pant's pockets and applied them to her ankle, sighing in relief when some of the pain left her. _ 'Thank you, Kaede, for teaching me about herbs. I'll never forget you for that.' _

As soon as Kagome declared she was done, Inuyasha dumped her arrows into the quiver, helped her onto his back, and took off across Bifrost Bridge. 

  


* * *

Kagome and Inuyasha found their way to Norway while it was in the middle of a snowstorm. The wind and heavy snowflakes almost blinded the both of them and made the going difficult. Plus, the snow was deep--almost two feet. Luckily, he didn't mind the cold too much, but Kagome was different. He could feel her shiver violently as she clung tightly to him, obviously trying to use him as a heat source.

"Cooooold," the miko whispered softly, her teeth beginning to chatter. She liked snow well enough, as long as she was dressed properly. Unfortunately for her, she was only in thin red pants and a white long-sleeved shirt, neither of which provided much protection from the cold weather. Thus, she wanted out of the cold.

"I'll get us to a village and inside as soon as I can," he promised. "We'll just have to wait out this storm." 

"Okay," Kagome replied, shivering violently. Suddenly, she sensed something not too far off in the distance. It was the forbidding feeling which meant danger to her. "Inuyasha... something's up ahead of us, and I don't think it's nice." 

"Great. Is there only one?" the hanyou inquired.

She shook her head slightly, her nose practically buried in his hair. "No. There's three."

Inuyasha looked around, but he couldn't see anything through all the falling snow. "How far away are they?"

"Not too far away," Kagome answered. "They're about ten feet... five feet..." She paused, looking up. "We're right below them."

She shrieked when the monstrous AIs came into view. They were gigantic black spiders with humans heads. Spidrens, they were called, and not quite as rare as the wyverns and hurroks had been. They shot poisonous webs out at their enemies and ate anything and everything that was alive and moving. Unfortunately for the travelers, they especially liked to eat humans and demons.

Without thinking, she fired a few arrows at the monsters, hitting one and killing it instantly. Inuyasha struck out at one with his sword, but the spidren was not damaged in the least. He almost couldn't believe it. Never before had his sword had absolutely no effect on a creature before. It was almost amazing. Well, it would have been amazing if he hadn't hated that fact so much.

Growling, the hanyou tried another approach. "Kaze no Kizu!" The power bounced right off of the two AI's, heading right back at him and Kagome. He dodged his own deflected attack, not liking the way things were going._ 'I could use Bakuryuuha, but I can't chance it coming back at me. I probably won't be able to dodge it, and I can't risk Kagome's life like that. I'll just have to let her deal with them.' _

One spidren fired some pinkish colored web out of its spinnerets at them, but Inuyasha jumped out of the way. "Kagome, they're all yours," he informed her, sheathing his sword. He didn't need it anymore. It was only a hindrance at the moment. "Fire away." He wanted to stay still while she fired, but he couldn't. The spidrens kept firing their webbing at him, forcing him to dodge; however, the miko adapted.

Using her brain, Kagome adjusted to the hanyou's movements and fired a few arrows. Some missed, but the majority hit their targets. Within seconds, the other two spidrens were dead.

"Well, that wasn't so bad, I guess," she commented, burying her face in the crook of the dog demon's neck. She was so cold, even after the battle and the adrenaline rush.

Inuyasha nodded his head in agreement. "Yeah. Now, time to get to town. I think it's somewhere near here," he replied, trying to figure out where the village was. He didn't even know where he was, much less where the village was in relation to him. He wanted to get the girl somewhere that was inside though, so he kept trudging on, praying that he would find someplace to hide out in until the storm passed. Unfortunately, he couldn't find the village and the storm only became worse.

He sneezed once, squinting against the chilly wind and snowflakes that kept hitting his face. His bare feet felt frozen, but his arms, legs, and back felt just fine. He was starting to think that his sword was probably beginning to freeze in its sheath. 

After about fifteen minutes, he found the town, and he quickly took Kagome into an inn, setting her down in one of the chairs near the bar. The inn was rather cozy, with wood tables and chairs littering the main room. A single man worked behind the bar, preparing drinks, while another man went to different tables and delivered drinks to people. The room was lit by candles and torches, so it wasn't incredibly bright, but it was warm, which was what mattered. 

"This place seems nice enough," Kagome commented as Inuyasha sat down next to her. She was happy to be in a warm place, so she couldn't help but smile.

"Yeah, I guess so," the inu hanyou responded, tapping his claws on the tabletop. He was bored already, which wasn't a good thing. "It's warm, which is what I was going for."

"What's wrong?" she inquired. "You sound a little... annoyed." 

Inuyasha growled softly. "We keep running into all these demons and monsters," he said gruffly. "It almost seems like someone's trying to stop us or something."

"Are you sure?" Kagome wanted to know, carefully watching his face.

"Yeah. First, we run into the hurroks, then Yura, then the wyverns, then the four demons, and then the spidrens." He ticked off each group on his fingers. "I think it's possible that someone in power is trying to stop us from completely your quest."

The miko considered that idea for a few moments. It certainly had some merit, especially when she considered how new she was and how hard her quest was. Sure, she had an incredibly long time limit, but that was overshadowed by everything else. "You might be right," she replied after a while. "But who in power would be trying to stop us? And why?" 

Inuyasha shrugged. "I don't have a clue why, but I have an idea about the who." He scowled. "I bet the stupid Elves are the cause of all this. After my quest with the short time limit and your quest that you received after only month, I wouldn't be surprised if they had some reason to keep the both of us from completing your quest."

"But they gave me the quest. Why would they want to stop me?" Kagome inquired, frowning. "It doesn't make any sense."

"Maybe they have a bet going between themselves," Inuyasha suggested. "Maybe they have another reason. I certainly don't know, and I don't care what their reason is. I'm still gonna kick their butts if they're doing all this to us on purpose."

Cheering suddenly went up around the inn. The storm had finally ended, so many of the people who had been holed up in the inn, just like Kagome and Inuyasha, were thankfully able to leave. Over half of the people in the room stood up and walked out the door.

The miko turned to her friend and ally. "Shall we go too?" she asked, curious. She wasn't sure whether or not Inuyasha would want to stick around the inn for a while so her ankle could heal up some more. Her gut instinct told her that he would want to leave, and she went with that.

Inuyasha nodded his head, golden eyes looking a little happier. "Yeah. Let's hit the road again. We need to go south-east for at least a few hours, and we don't have a lot of time to waste."

Kagome got onto his back again, her arms going around his neck, his arms hooking under her legs to support her weight a little better. Then, he was off. 

  


* * *

Sometime after lunch, Kagome and Inuyasha came across the giant hole in the ground that was supposed to be the connecting bridge between Norway and Egypt. The area around it was bleak, flat, and boring, which made both travelers think that they had found the wrong hole.

"Ummm... Should we at least try it?" the miko suggested. "If we're wrong, I guess we could always jump back out. You are strong enough to do that, right?"

"Probably," he answered. "And I guess it couldn't hurt to try." Frowning thoughtfully, he tried to judge just how far down the bottom probably was, but due to the fact that he couldn't see the bottom, he had trouble guessing.

"Well, let's go." Kagome sounded sure of herself, but she had her fingers crossed as she prayed to the Norse gods, mainly Odin, that they had found the correct hole and that they would end up in Egypt after jumping in.

After taking a deep breath and making sure that he had a good grip on Kagome, he leapt into the black hole.

  


* * *

The woman with dark hair and skin grinned. "Well, they seem to be coming along quite nicely. I wonder how long it'll take them to figure out exactly what's going on?"

The blond shrugged, her blue eyes dancing with curiosity. "I don't know. Maybe a month."

"I don't think they'll figure it out," the pale-skinned female replied. "After all, I don't believe they know all that much about us, do they?" 

The first woman shook her head, and evil smile on her face. "Nope. They don't."

  


* * *

  


* * *

  


* * *

CotA: Well, I finally know who those three women are, and all I had to do for Sess-chan is promise to finish Tourniquet... with a lemon somewhere in there. *shrugs* It's not so bad, and I can most certainly deal with that. I mean, how hard could it be? Besides, if I get stuck, I can always as Sess-chan for help. *grins*

Sess-chan: And she seems so proud of that fact, too.

CotA: Of course. Why wouldn't I be?

Sess-chan: I would rather not go into it. So, I'll just say that the review responses are below and make you work on Tourniquet.

Inu009: I'm trying to work in the fluff, but it's a little hard. Inuyasha and Kagome just met, so it'll take a little time for them to warm up to each other. Just be patient. And you'll meet Sango later.

Lady Icykimi: Kikyou already was added. She was the shop keeper that gave Kagome those nice little pieces of advice. And as for the Shikon no Tama... most people just don't know about it. It's one of those arcane things that people tend to ignore because it's not supposed to exist.

Inu-chan 613: Sango will come in soon, but I'm not sure about Kouga. I'm still trying to work him in. And sorry. There'll be no rosary in this. Inuyasha doesn't need it.

kumiko-chan:*giggles* I had a feeling you weren't asking for a lemon. And to answer your question... no, there won't be any Sango/Miroku fluff. They're not even going to meet in this story. That's reserved for the sequel. ^_^ And I'll see if I can check out your story sometime. I can't promise anything though, because my internet time is limited. 

Yanou: Yes, I am evil. *smiles* And why would Miroku ever give up? I mean, c'mon! *laughs* He's determined, stubborn, whatever you wanna call it. 

Purple Witchy Angel: Ahhh... I'm sorry. It must have stunk to have a boring birthday, but at least you got money! 

Elen Liste Alda: I'm glad you like it. I'm working very hard on this story. 

Kittymui: I will reveal who they are eventually, and thanks for reviewing. 

Eruinichil: I'm surprised that he didn't glomp her too, but I guess he's matured a little bit. 

drake220: Um... who? I'm not sure who you're talking about, so you can safely assume that the three women weren't modeled after them. And I don't know why Kagome didn't slap Miroku. I guess she never really did come out of shock. 

Kim: I'm so glad you think I update fast enough. I do try hard. 

silentslayer: Hmmm... I guess he is becoming a little more possessive. Good. I was hoping that would happen. 

Sakura onto Hitomi: You are a fabulous authoress! I love your stories so much. And thanks for catching that error. I'll go fix that ASAP. *hugs Sakura-chan* I can't believe I missed that stupid mistake. 

Demongirl6381: I will update as soon as I can. Promise. 

Knight Star: Um... I do have the whole story pretty much planned out. This story is going to have ten chapters plus an epilogue. And it depends on the author whether or not it's better to plan out a story from the start. I've found that it's better for me to have a guideline to go by. I need to have a little flexibility when writing so I can still be a little spontaneous. 

dEMONsTARFire387: I will update as soon as I can. *sighs* It's amazing how many people tell me to update soon.

Lady Rose Jade: Cool. I can't wait to see what idea you impliment. 


	5. Chapter 5

Virtual Reality 

Chapter Five

Kagome and Inuyasha were practically blinded by the sun when they entered the other world, which was hopefully Egypt. They weren't sure, but both of them were praying. As their eyes adjusted to the bright light and high temperature, the dog demon noticed that he was standing on sand, incredibly dry sand. A quick sniff of the air told him that there was little moisture.

They were in a desert.

"Wow... big," the miko commented as soon as she could see. The first thing her eyes had lit upon was gigantic pyramids... three of them. All three were tall and beautiful as the sun shone off the white limestone, their peaks reaching high up into the sky. They seemed to touch the sun.

"The pyramids of Giza," the hanyou said, sounding amazed as well. It was hard not to be impressed by such gigantic structures, even though they were merely ones and zeros. The tallest one had to be at least 450 feet tall, and the shortest was probably 200 feet or so. Big was putting it lightly. Colossal was more like it. 

"I'd say we're in Egypt then," Kagome stated with a small smile. _ 'It shouldn't take that long to get to the pharaoh or whoever rules Egypt. Then, all we have to do is find out from him where the Shikon no Tama is. Hopefully, it's in Egypt too.' _

Inuyasha rolled his golden eyes, setting the miko down on the ground. Her ankle was fine, thanks to some herbs she had been applying to it. "No shit, Sherlock. Whatever gave you that idea?" 

She grinned and pointed at the pyramids. "Them," she replied. _'Teasing him is fun.' _

He shook his head, not quite sure how to react to the girl. In truth, he did kind of enjoy her strange attitude. It was entertaining, to say the least, and he liked how she kept things light but didn't go overboard. She stood her ground as well, which was a big plus. He had met quite a few chicken players, and he hadn't liked them very much. They had always annoyed him. 

"Let's get going," Inuyasha stated, beginning to walk off. He had a rough idea where the pharaoh's palace was, so he was set on arriving there as soon as possible. Walking around a desert was not his idea of fun. 

"Wait up!" Huffing softly, Kagome raced after him. 

  


* * *

The dark-skinned woman sighed sadly, her dark eyes on the reflecting pool, which just happened to show Kagome and Inuyasha walking through the desert. "This quest has become far too easy for them. We should... spice things up." She smiled mischievously. "Fun, fun, fun." 

Blue eyes filled with amusement, the blond shook her head. "You're too eager. We don't want to break them." 

"Oh, tish-tosh. They'll be just fine," the first woman retorted, flapping her hand. 

"Are you sure?" the pale-skinned woman inquired softly. 

The dark-haired woman nodded. "And just to prove it, I'll have Uwibami and an aigaumcha entertain them." 

"An aigaumcha I can understand, even twenty aigaumchas, but Uwibami? Isn't that a little extreme?" the blond inquired, frowning slightly. 

"Of course." The first woman grinned, her dark eyes sparkling. "You two just wait and see. I've already dispatched them. Inuyasha and Kagome should be meeting up with their opponents any second now." 

  


* * *

Kagome sighed and wiped her forehead. "I know the creators of this game wanted everything to be realistic, but they really didn't have to make ancient Egypt so hot." She was sweating so bad she was willing to bet her body in the real world was sweating as well. 

"I smell water, which is most likely the Nile," Inuyasha replied, silently echoing his agreement. He hated the heat too. "If you're that hot, then once we reach it, you can jump in the river." 

She smiled. "That sounds heavenly." She suddenly stopped walking, a familiar feeling coming over her. A monster was coming... a new and different one. 

"Demon," then silver-haired hanyou whispered, eyes darting around. Almost everything he could see was nothing but sand and more sand, but off to his left, he spotted a dark shape that was quickly becoming larger. 

"There's a monster coming too, like the spidrens but different," Kagome informed him, notching an arrow on her bow. She wanted to be ready for her opponent. "I think it's coming from the same direction as that demon. I'm not sure how powerful it is, but it feels evil." 

Inuyasha drew his sword, the transformed blade reflecting the sunlight. He stood there, proud and ready for battle as the enemy continued to approach. 

Golden eyes widened in shock when the demon came close enough for him to see exactly what kind of demon it was. His opponent was a dragon demon, but it was far larger than Ryuukossei by at least a hundred feet. The dragon was so big he blocked out the sun and blackened the skies, his jet black scales almost glowing with power. 

"Uwibami," Kagome breathed, her mouth hanging open. A few years ago, she had gone through a faze in which she had read everything she could on mythology. She didn't remember much of what she had read, but she did remember the stories about the dragon-like creatures. Uwibami had been a gigantic serpent or dragon from Japanese mythology that had been large enough to swallow a man on horseback whole--a formidable opponent, indeed. Fortunately, a man named Yegara-no-Heida had fought against Uwibami, killing the dragon; however, it seemed like the Elves felt like reviving him just for the purposes of their little game. 

The miko's attention was drawn away from the dragon when she felt something bite her ankle. Crying out, she shook her foot, trying to dislodge whatever was biting her. A small monster with six arms and two legs went flying, landing in the dirt a few feet away. Before it stood back up, she noticed something unusual about the monster--it had eyes on its feet. 

The creature hissed at her, baring blood-stained fangs, before launching at her again, its speed absolutely phenomenally. She could barely even follow it with her eyes, let alone shoot an arrow at it. _ 'I hope Inuyasha can take care of Uwibami, while I deal with this little guy,' _the raven-haired girl thought, firing an arrow at the ground near her feet. 

Inuyasha leapt straight up into the air at the dragon demon, preparing to slash him in half with his sword. His blade bounced right off the dragon's scales, not even leaving a scratch. While thunder-like laughter boomed through the air, the hanyou cursed._ 'Shit. He's strong and obviously fast. To kill him, I'd have to cut off his head or hit his heart, and to do that I need a distraction.' _He looked around for the miko, finding her firing arrows at a tiny creature. _ 'What is she doing?' _

Kagome bit her lower lip in concentration as she fired a circle of arrows around herself, her power creating a blazing wall around her body. The creature avoided her magic, obviously scared of it. _ 'Now, if I can only get it to hold still so I can actually hit it with an arrow,' _she thought wistfully, firing once again at the creature. The shaft missed, burrowing in the sand. When she reached back to grab another arrow out of her quiver, she realized that she was out. She had used her last arrow. 

Not really knowing what to do, but understanding that she was safe from the creature as long as her arrows encircled her, she looked around for Inuyasha. He was fighting against the dragon demon, the huge dragon demon Uwibami. The enemy was so fast that the inu youkai couldn't seem to strike a sensitive place. Uwibami just dodged, using the harder scales on his back and sides to deflect every one of Inuyasha's attacks. 

Inuyasha growled as he landed on the sandy ground. The dragon demon was proving to be a powerful adversary, one that he wouldn't be able to defeat by simply swinging his sword. He would have to use greater firepower... not that he minded. 

"Kaze no Kizu!" he shouted, leaping up into the air, aiming the attack at the demon's head. 

"You will have to do better than that to defeat me," the black dragon replied, swiftly moving so that another piece of him took the brunt of the assault. "If you can even do that before I decide to eat you." 

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Inuyasha shrugged off the demon's response. "If I had a coin for every time someone has said something like that to me, I'd be able to buy every fucking item in this game." He glanced out of the corner of his eyes, trying to see if Kagome was still okay. Luckily, she was, but the little monster was still trying to attack her. _ 'C'mon, Kagome. Deal with that stupid creature so we can defeat the bigger threat. I won't be able to land a single real hit on him without a distraction.' _

"Geez, you're annoying," Kagome muttered, glaring at the little monster. It simply continued to hiss at her, throwing sand at her, aiming for her eyes. _ 'I have to think of some way to kill this thing.' _Her eyes wandered over the arrows that littered the ground. They were scattered all over, creating a loose, open circle around the monster. If she could have ran a rope between them all, the creature would be imprisoned. _ 'Of course!' _

Smiling, the miko focused all of her attention on the shafts in the sand. Her magic still blazed inside of them, so she called upon it. Purple-pink power blazed all around the creature as streams of the magic shot out of each arrow, forming a kind of fence around the ugly monster. 

The creature hissed and cried out, the sounds sharp and piercing. It tried to escape from the trap, but the walls her arrows and miko magic had created were too high; it was trapped. 

"Let's see if I can hit you now," Kagome whispered, forming an arrow of pure magic and notching it. She pulled the arrow back and then fired. The creature couldn't dodge; it couldn't do anything as her attack came straight at it. Her purple-pink shaft hit home--the creature's heart. Within moments, there was nothing left of her opponent, not even ashes. 

Quickly gathering up her arrows, she once again looked over at Inuyasha. He didn't seem to be faring well against the dragon. All of his attacks, no matter how well-aimed they were, missed. Uwibami kept blocking them with the less vulnerable parts of his body. _ 'Inuyasha needs a distraction. He needs someone to keep Uwibami from moving just long enough for him to chop of the thing's black head. I hope my arrows will be enough.' _

Inuyasha swiftly jumped out of the way as the dragon demon swooped down, mouth wide open. There was no way he was going to let his enemy eat him. He didn't want to die, and he most certainly didn't plan on it. _ 'I hope he bites he own tail, the bastard,' _the hanyou thought darkly, dodging another diving attack. He tried to counter-attack, but it was useless. The black dragon was smart, very smart, which was not a good thing. 

"Hey, Uwibami! Why don't you dodge this!" Kagome yelled, firing an arrow straight at his head. It blazed purple-pink, showing that it was surrounded by her magic. Alas, the dragon demon swiftly moved in the air, using another, stronger part of his body to deflect the arrow. Silently cursing, she fired more arrows, each one glowing with power. Just like the first one, each shaft failed, striking another part of his body that which the arrow had been intended for. 

"Foolish girl. Not only is your magic worthless against my kind, but your arrows are too slow. You'll never be able to destroy me, not with your pathetic abilities," Uwibami declared, positioning himself so he could easily swoop down and devour the miko. 

"I guess you forgot about me!" Inuyasha shouted. "Bakuryuuha!" Power erupted from his sword, the attack aimed at the dragon demon's head. With the hanyou being so close, Uwibami couldn't dodge. He tried to though, quickly bringing his tail between him and the dog demon; however, he was too slow. The attack struck him right between the eyes, enveloping him. 

The hanyou landed back on the ground beside Kagome, his golden eyes fixed on the demon that was crashing down to the ground. Moments later, nothing was left of the dragon's body. 

Kagome sighed in relief. "That battle was a nightmare." She glanced down at her ankle, which was bleeding sluggishly. A set of perfect teeth marks adorned her skin, each one red and swollen. "I need water so I can clean this wound. That creature's teeth did not look sanitary." 

Inuyasha's gaze followed the miko's own, and his eyes widened when he saw her wound. "Why didn't you tell me that thing bit you?!" he exclaimed, kneeling down to get a better look at her damaged ankle. It was bad, and he couldn't even figure out how she was still standing. Also, the wound smelled funny, and that made him worry. "Sit down," he ordered, scowling. They would have to do something about her ankle immediately. 

"I think I'll be okay, Inuyasha," she assured him._ 'Although I do have bad luck, it seems. It's the same ankle I hurt fighting those demons by Bifrost Bridge, and I'm all out of healing herbs.' _"I just need to get to water soon so I can clean it. It doesn't hurt." 

The hanyou just shook his head. "It probably had some kind of painkiller in its saliva, which is why it doesn't hurt. It'll pain you later though, so listen to me and sit down," he snapped. "I have to clean the wound_ now_, not later." 

Mentally shrugging, Kagome obeyed, allowing him to inspect her ankle with gentle hands. When he poked her flesh with a claw, she didn't feel a thing. It seemed that his assumption about a pain killer had been correct. "We have no water or any liquid, so how are we supposed to clean the wound now?" She frowned and then bit her bottom lip in worry. She didn't know what to do, and that fact bothered her. 

_'There isn't any other way,' _Inuyasha thought, taking a deep breath. _ 'The wound needs to be cleaned right now. I can't wait any longer.' _He gave the raven-haired miko a reassuring look. "Don't try to fight me. I'm going to clean the wound." 

She cocked her head to one side, her brown eyes curious. "How so?" 

He didn't verbally answer. Instead, he lowered his head and began to lick her wound, his rough tongue cleaning all her blood off her skin. 

Kagome gasped in reaction but kept still, knowing that he was trying to help her. She merely licked her dry lips and let him continue, keeping perfectly silent. It was strange, watching him lick her skin, but natural at the same time. She didn't mind it, but as he continued to clean her wound, pain slowly swept through her ankle. 

Inuyasha felt his heart go out to the miko when she felt her tense in pain. There wasn't anything he could do about it though, except be thankful that he was a dog demon. His saliva could cleanse wounds... not that he had ever used his saliva for that before. Kagome was the first one. 

When the lower half of her leg felt like it was on fire, the miko watched the inu hanyou draw away, an expression of worry on his face. "How's your ankle?" 

Kagome winced. "It's been better." She tried to put on a brave face, but she couldn't. She was just in too much pain, which meant that she wouldn't be able to walk. 

Inuyasha picked her up bridal style. He knew that she was in no condition to even stand up, let alone walk . "Once we arrive to the palace we can see about getting you a healer... or something," he told her, beginning to run in the direction that he knew the palace was in. 

She bit her lower lip and allowed her head to rest against his muscular chest, fighting back the pain. "Thank you, Inuyasha." Even though her ankle hurt more than before, she understood that he had only done what had been best for her. She couldn't have asked for anything more than that. 

He smiled softly, the expression barely noticeable. "You're welcome." 

  


* * *

An hour later, they arrived outside the palace. It was huge, built mainly out of limestone and beautiful marble. Gigantic statues of Egyptian gods stood on either side of the entrance, casting shadows across the sandy path. Everything around them seemed to have been done on a grand scale, making the two feel like minuscule ants. 

"Amazing," Kagome breathed, wincing slightly when she accidentally moved her hurt ankle. The wound had really begun to bother her. It was getting to the point where she had the greatest desire just to chop her wounded area off, relieving herself of the pain. Unfortunately, she knew that removing her foot would only cause her more agony, so she just remained mostly silently as Inuyasha carried her. 

"Let's see if anyone's home," Inuyasha said, walking up a small flight of stairs to reach the interior. The steps were made of marble and perfectly level. Interesting, to be sure, but he didn't worry about that. Instead, most of his attention was focused on the woman with the large boomerang that was standing beside a huge pillar. 

The strangely armed female was dressed in a completely black outfit that had small red pieces of armor attached in different places. She had pulled her long black hair into a high ponytail, her brown eyes carefully studying him from beneath black eyebrows. A sword hung at her side, and a small demon cat with two tails perched on her shoulder, watching the approaching demon and miko as well. 

"State your name and business," the woman demanded, her hand resting on her boomerang. She wasn't sure if she trusted the inu youkai or not, but she felt her heart go out to the miko. _ 'She is injured, but why is a demon carrying her? I always thought that demons and mikos didn't get along very well.' _

"Inuyasha. I'm here to see the ruler of Egypt," the hanyou replied, narrowing his eyes at the female. _'She's dressed like a demon exterminator, which means she just might be one of those rare, non- magical humans who can actually stand up to a demon.' _

She rolled her eyes, obviously unimpressed. "And why do you wish to see Queen Cleopatra?" 

"The Oracle said that she's the only one who can answer our question about my quest," Kagome answered. 

_'The Oracle?' _Her hand eased away from her boomerang. _ 'She must be telling the truth. Her face says she is.' _ "And you are?" 

"Kagome," the miko stated, a small smile on her face. She instantly liked the other female, although she wasn't quite sure why. 

"I'm Sango," the woman in black replied. "Come on inside. I'll have someone tend to your wound while I talk to Queen Cleopatra." 

"Thank you," Kagome said gratefully, her eyes reflecting how she felt. 

"You're welcome." Sango turned around and began to walk off; Inuyasha followed, Kagome in his arms. 

  


* * *

Sango led Kagome and Inuyasha into a nicely decorated room, instructing them to wait while she sent someone to them. Then, the demon exterminator left. 

The hanyou placed the wounded girl down on a pillow-covered couch, taking care not to cause any more harm to her ankle. "Are you comfortable?" he asked, sitting down in a nearby chair. 

Kagome nodded her head. "Yes, thank you." She winced when she glanced down at her wound. "I appreciate all of this, really I do." 

He shrugged, secretly pleased. "Don't mention it. That's what friends do." 

She couldn't help but smile at that, despite all the pain she was in at the moment. _ 'I didn't even know that he considered me a friend,' _she thought. "Right. Friends," she responded, nodding her head in agreement. 

Right then, a young black-haired boy walked into the room, his brown eyes kind. He was dressed in a suit similar to Sango's, and he carried a metal box in his arms. "I'm here to tend to Kagome's wounds," he stated, voice soft and caring. 

Inuyasha gestured toward the miko's ankle. "Have at it." 

The young boy set the box down by Kagome's feet and opened it up, pulling out cloth and a clay jar. The clay jar was filled with a green liquid, which he applied to the wounded area. Amazingly enough, it deadened the pain, much to the female's relief. Then, he wrapped the cloth around her ankle. 

"Thank you," Kagome said once he was finished. "But who are you?" 

He smiled gently at her. "I'm Kohaku, Sango's younger brother," he answered politely. "And you're welcome." Then, he packed up all his things and left. 

Inuyasha looked at Kagome. "How's your ankle doing?" 

"Much better," she replied happily. "Most of the pain is gone. That stuff he put on my wound is amazing." Smiling, she attempted to stand up, only to have the hanyou gently push her back onto the couch. 

"Just because the pain is gone doesn't mean you're healed," he scolded, frowning at her. She was foolish to try to put any weight on her damaged ankle so soon after hurting it. 

Kagome sighed, feeling stupid for trying to do something so foolish. "You're right. I guess I just got a little carried away." She gave him an apologetic look. 

A small sound drew the miko's gaze to the door. Sango stood there, looking slightly uncomfortable. "I spoke to Queen Cleopatra, and she said that you have to earn the right to speak with her." 

"And how do we do that?" Inuyasha wanted to know, sounding rather unhappy. He was quickly growing tired of all the mess he and Kagome were having to go through just to find the Shikon no Tama. 

"She says you have to defeat her champion, Kouga the wolf demon," the woman in black replied. "If you can do that, then you may speak with her." 

The hanyou grinned._ 'How hard can fighting him be?' _he mused. "Bring 'em on. I'll defeat him, no problem." 

Sango sighed. "Unfortunately, he's not here at the moment." 

"Okay... when will he be back?" Kagome inquired, blinking. She couldn't help but wonder if something was wrong. The other female just looked too troubled for her liking. 

"In a month," the demon exterminator replied. 

"WHAT?!" Inuyasha shouted in surprise. 

Sango decided to explain. "No one has wanted to fight him in a long time, so he grew bored and left on vacation. He should be back in about a month." 

The silver-haired demon crossed his arms, scowling darkly. "This is fucking stupid. I can't believe I have to wait a whole month just to fight some stupid wolf so I can talk to Cleopatra." 

"Calm down, Inuyasha," Kagome recommended. "Maybe there's something else we can do to earn the right to speak with her." She turned her gaze to Sango, expression hopeful. 

The woman just shook her head. "No. Queen Cleopatra was very specific. You have to defeat Kouga if you want to talk to her." 

The hanyou growled. "And what are we supposed to do until then? Just sit around?" 

Sango smiled softly, remembering the fact that she did have one piece of good news for them. "Because the queen realizes how long you two will have to wait, she offered some rooms here in the palace which you can stay at while you're logged in. That way, you'll be here when Kouga arrives," she informed them. 

"Fine," he said reluctantly. "It's not like we have much of a choice." 

"I'll show you two where your rooms, but then I have to report back to Queen Cleopatra's side," Sango stated. 

"Will we be seeing you again?" Kagome inquired as Inuyasha picked her up. "I'd like to get to know you better." 

Sango couldn't help but grin. "As long as I'm not on guard duty... Sure." 

  


* * *

The month passed by rather quickly for both Inuyasha and Kagome, much to their surprise. The miko and Sango became good friends, and the inu youkai grew even closer to Kagome, just as she did to him. The three spent countless hours together, wandering around the bazaars, exploring the many beautiful temples, and simply talking. Kohaku even joined them on their outings, revealing just how attached he was to his sister and vice versa. Of course, Kagome's ankle healed perfectly, much to her delight, and by the end of the month, she was walking and running as if nothing had happened. Things were pretty good, but things so change. 

It was the middle of the afternoon, and Kagome and Inuyasha were sitting outside the palace, talking, when Sango came outside, smiling. She seemed happy about something, so naturally, the miko and hanyou were curious. 

"What's up, Sango?" Kagome inquired, standing up and facing her good friend. 

"Kouga's back, and the battle is to take place immediately," the black-clad female replied. "It will take place in the thrown room in front of the queen, and no weapons are allowed." 

"I hope the room's indestructible," Inuyasha muttered, standing up as well. He wasn't sure on what he thought about Kouga, a man who could just go off on a month vacation, but he was sure that he wanted to fight. Although he had enjoyed spending the last month just enjoying Kagome's company, he had missed all the battles they usually got themselves into. 

"I don't know about that, but I do know that the audience will be small," Sango responded. "Now, come on. Queen Cleopatra does not like to be kept waiting." 

So, without wasting time, Sango led Kagome and Inuyasha to the thrown room, a huge room with towering pillars and mosaic floors. A woman with black hair and equally black eyes sat on a golden throne at one end of the room, a golden headdress adorning her, marking her as the queen. Her white robe swept down to just below her ankles, barely revealing her sandal-clad feet. 

Next to Queen Cleopatra stood a man. He had pointed ears and a dark brown tail that swished back and forth. His long black hair was in a high ponytail, and a headband went around his forehead. Blank blue eyes stared out at everything, and when he grinned, he revealed sharp canine teeth. He was dressed in clothes that were a mixture of armor and brown fur. 

Inuyasha felt an instant dislike for the man, easily realizing that it was Kouga, the wolf demon--his opponent. "He looks weak," the hanyou commented, crossing his arms over his chest. "I'll have no problem kicking his butt." 

"I'm not so sure," Kagome responded as Sango went to stand by the queen's throne. 

"Feh. He's nothing but a wimpy wolf." The silver-haired man smirked. "Bring it on." 

The queen stood up, her black eyes going straight to Kagome and Inuyasha. Besides Cleopatra, Kouga, Sango, the miko and the hanyou, there was no one else in the room. It was as Sango had said--a small audience. 

"As soon as the dog demon discards of his weapons, the battle will begin," Cleopatra stated, her voice filling the room. 

Inuyasha handed his sword, sheath and all, to Kagome. "Take good care of this while I earn us the right to talk to Miss High and Mighty, okay?" 

"All right..." Praying that he would be alright, the raven-haired miko watched Inuyasha walk toward the wolf demon. 

"Let's get this started, Kouga," the hanyou said, cracking his knuckles. "I'm more than ready to pound your skull into the ground if need be." 

Kouga laughed as he strode right up to his opponent. "Yeah right." 

Then, with that said, the two began to fight. Inuyasha threw the first punch, landing a perfect hit in the middle of the wolf demon's stomach. Kouga quickly recovered, trying to uppercut the hanyou. Inuyasha dodged, striking out with his claws, but the wolf demon saw it coming, crouched down, and tripped the inu youkai. 

Soon, their battle became a ferocious match, which reminded Kagome of a dog fight she had seen a clip of on the internet a few years back. The two demons snarled at each other as they both tried to gain the upper hand. Unfortunately, Kouga was a little faster than Inuyasha, giving him a slight advantage; however, the hanyou was the stronger of the two. 

Kouga landed a kick in the dog demon's side, but Inuyasha quickly recovered, hitting Kouga in the face with all his strength. The wolf demon went flying back about ten feet, skidding across the floor for another five. As soon as he came to a stop, he was back on his feet, rubbing his face. He looked impressed. 

"Not bad," the wolf demon said with a smirk. "But you're still going to lose." 

"I doubt that," Inuyasha replied. He was tired of the battle, tired of Kouga, so he decided to end it. It was time to take things to the next level. 

"Whatever, dog breath." Kouga raced at the inu youkai, preparing to strike the hanyou with his fist. He was not going to lose the battle, there was absolutely no way. He had never been defeated before, so it was impossible for a hanyou to beat him, he was sure of it. 

Inuyasha didn't even make a move to dodge. He merely grinned. "Sankon Tetsusou!" He slashed out at Kouga with his claws, the power slicing through the armor covering the wolf demon's chest and sending him flying once again. Unfortunately for Kouga, he didn't get back up. The wolf demon stayed down, although he was still breathing. Inuyasha had spared his life. 

"I was right. It wasn't that hard," the inu youkai stated, going back to Kagome and taking back his sword from her. 

"Good job," Kagome congratulated him, smiling. "And I'm happy you didn't kill him." 

"Yeah, whatever. The only thing I care about now is having our question answered," he responded, turning to glare at Cleopatra. He wasn't quite sure what to make of the woman on the throne, but he had a feeling she was an AI. 

Sango grinned at her two friends. "Bravo. You're the first person to have beaten him." 

"So now we get to talk to Cleopatra." Inuyasha crossed his arms. 

"Be polite," Kagome recommended. "She's a queen." 

He sneered at that. "Feh." 

The queen shook her head, seemingly amused. "You have defeated Kouga and so earned the right to talk to me. So, ask me your question that the Oracle claims I have the answer to." 

Kagome stepped forward. "Where is the Shikon no Tama?" 

Cleopatra chuckled. "I never thought anyone would ever ask me about that," she responded. "But I do know where it is." 

"Well, spit it out!" Inuyasha ordered, tone rough. 

The miko lightly hit him over the head. "Be nice!" she snapped. 

That only caused the queen to laugh harder. "Oh... you both are so entertaining." She smiled softly at the both of them. "But as for your question, the Shikon no Tama is in a statue of a god." 

"Which statue and which god?" Kagome inquired curiously. 

"It's in the base of the statue of the god Okuni-Nusihi inside the Japanese palace," Cleopatra answered. 

Inuyasha about fell down face first. He couldn't believe it. After all the traveling they had done, the stupid thing was in ancient Japan! 

"IT'S WHAT?!?!" 

  


* * *

The woman with black hair and dark skin smiled. "See? I was right. They did just fine against Uwibami, and now look at them, they're even closer than they were before." 

The blonde smiled, blue eyes briefly gazing into dark ones. "Yes, you were right. I'll give you that." 

"Very impressive," the pale-skinned woman added. "It probably will not take them too much longer." 

"Yep." The dark-haired woman clapped her hands. "And I know who they get to deal with next." 

The blue-eyed female cocked her head to one side, expression filled with curiosity. "Oh? Who?" 

She grinned. "A taiyoukai by the name of Sesshoumaru." 


	6. Chapter 6

CotA: And now for the long awaited chapter that contains Sesshoumaru-sama. Geez, it's amazing how many people adore him, just like I do. *giggles* Well, on with the chappie. 

Virtual Reality

Chapter Six

"Sesshoumaru isn't on yet," the woman with black hair complained, looking down at her viewing pool. "Inuyasha and Kagome can't return to Japan until he's logged on. I want them to run into each other!" 

The female with silver hair sighed. "Calm down. Becoming so excited will not do you any good." 

"But-!" the first woman began to protest.

The blonde interrupted her. "Let's give them something to entertain themselves with then. I'm sure a few AI's will be able to keep them entertained for a little bit." 

The dark-haired woman grinned mischievously. "That's a great idea. How about some more hurroks and some killer unicorns?"

The other two nodded their heads. "Sounds good to me."

  


* * *

"This is stupid," Inuyasha muttered. "After all the fucking crap I went through, the thing is in ancient Japan, the place we started out in!" He continued to mentally grumble, highly pissed that they had traveled so much for basically no reason. First off, why did no one in Japan know of the Shikon no Tama's existence? Second, why had the oracle sent them to Egypt to gain the answer, especially when the oracle supposedly knew everything? Something was up, and he wanted to know what. 

"It'll be alright, Inuyasha," Kagome replied soothingly. "We're in Greece right now, so we'll be in Japan soon. By the end of today or by tomorrow at the latest my quest will be over." She smiled at him, the expression hiding her sadness. "You won't have to protect me anymore. Isn't that great?" 

The miko didn't want to see Inuyasha go. She liked having him by her side; she loved his company because he was a wonderful person to talk to. He was dependable, even though he could be rude and gruff, and she had never felt so close to anyone before. She wished her quest wasn't about to end, if only so Inuyasha would stick around for a while longer. 

The hanyou shrugged. "Judging by what has happened so far, I won't count on getting that object today or tomorrow. We'll probably run into some serious difficulties." He grinned. "I've missed fighting." Suddenly, he paused, obviously lost in thought. "I might just keep on hanging around you after you've finished your quest. After all, you seem to get into constant trouble, and you'll probably end up dead if I'm not around to save you."

Kagome crossed her arms and huffed. "Well, thank you for being so confident in my abilities," she retorted sarcastically, but her expression quickly changed. "Thank you, Inuyasha. I appreciate it." She gave him a quick hug, and he rewarded her with a slight blush. 

"Hey! There's no reason to get all mushy on me!" he declared, trying to act tough, but he was unable to keep it up for long. She just had a strange effect on him that made him want to act kind and sweet with her. "You're welcome." He hesitated for a brief moment but then shrugged. _ 'Why not?' _He kissed her on the cheek, not even really knowing why he had wanted to do it. 

It was Kagome's turn to blush, her face turning bright red. She covered the cheek he had kissed with one hand, smiling softly. "Inuyasha..." The miko suddenly froze, a familiar bad feeling coming over her as her blush faded. It seemed her sweet moment with the hanyou would just have to wait. "Oh crap." 

Inuyasha frowned, not liking her reaction. He doubted she was upset about the kiss. After all, she had blushed and smiled, but something was bothering her. "What's wrong now?" he inquired gruffly. 

"Hurroks and something else," Kagome replied, eyes focused on something in the distance as her skin became pale. "Something bad."

"Hurroks never appear more than once a year," he stated, sounding confused. "Why are back now?" He drew his sword, the rusted blade transforming into a gleaming fang that shone brilliantly in the light. "The stupid Elves probably have something to do with this. I'll be you anything..." The hanyou drifted off when he saw what kind of creature was accompanying the hurroks. 

Killer unicorns... seven of them.

"Oh my." The miko's brown eyes widened drastically. The killer unicorns were fearful beasts, over six feet tall and black with foot long black horns in the middle of their foreheads. Their manes and tales were made of fiery-color hair that whipped about with every movement and breeze, and blood colored eyes glinted dangerously.

Above the unicorns flew ten hurroks, their leathery bat wings pumping as they sailed through the air. Their black bodies and red eyes filled Kagome with a sense of forbidding. The last time she had run into them, Inuyasha had been poisoned. She didn't want a repeat of that incident. 

The raven-haired girl instantly notched an arrow, preparing to fire on the hurroks as soon as they came close enough. She would leave the killer unicorns to Inuyasha, seeing as how his weapon was for close range and hers was for long range. 

The hanyou stood ready as the unicorns came upon them first, swarming around him. He swung his sword at one lean black body, aiming for the thick neck, but he missed. The unicorns went around him, avoiding his sword with amazing skill. Instead of staying around him, they went for the miko, making a ring around her.

"Kagome!" Inuyasha screamed, moving to help her, but something stopped him. A hurrok swooped down in front of him, forcing him to back up and deal with a whole different threat. He could only hope his friend and ally would survive long enough for him to go to her rescue.

"Darn it!" Kagome cursed, firing arrows at the black horned creatures as they ran around her in a circle. It was hard to aim when the unicorns kept rushing her one at a time, distracting her. They were smart, that was for sure, especially since they worked together as a herd, rounding up their prey. 

She fired a few more arrows, finally hitting one in the hindquarters. Luckily, Her magic instantly took effect, turning the evil AI to dust. 

_'Only six more to go,' _she thought sadly, risking a glance at the hanyou. He wasn't doing too good, but at least he was holding his own, just like her.

Inuyasha growled in annoyance at the creatures flying above his head. Every time he tried to go to help Kagome, they stopped him. All the rest of the time, they stayed up in the air, flying about, making it hard to figure out how to hit them.

Finally, he grew tired of trying to figure out how to hit them. He leapt up in the air, swinging his blade at three of them. "Bakuryuuha!" he shouted as power erupted out of his sword. Two of the hurroks died, nothing but ashes; however, the third escaped the attack.

A piercing scream drew his attention away from the hurroks. "Kagome!" Inuyasha yelled, seeing blood run down her right arm. With her wounded where she was, she wouldn't be able to fire any more arrows. She was helpless.

'No...' The dog demon instantly grew furious, charging over to help her. Two hurroks swooped down, blocking his way.

"DAMMIT! Go away!" Inuyasha ran at them, his eyes red from anger. No one was going to keep him from protecting Kagome. "Bakuryuuha!" The surge of power quickly killed off the two hurroks, turning them into dust, but the hanyou wasn't paying enough attention to notice. The only thing he cared about was getting to Kagome and saving her from the killer unicorns.

Kagome clutched at her useless arms, hissing in pain. Never before had she been wounded so badly, and the fact that it was her right arm only made it worse.

_'I have to do something. I can't just stand here like some kind of wimp,' _the miko thought, biting down on her bottom lip. _'My magic hurts monsters like these, so all I have to do is use my magic... but how?' _She looked all around her at the six black stallions circling her like vultures. 

One snorted and suddenly ran at her, its head lowered, the tip of the horn aimed at her heart. If she didn't do something soon, she would be dead.

_'I don't want to die!' _Kagome screamed in her mind, pulling her power around her, trying to form some kind of barrier. She had never done anything like that before, but it was better than doing nothing. 

The killer unicorn came incredibly close, the tip of its horn just inches away before a purple-pink light flashed, temporarily blinding the miko. 

Her sight quickly returned, revealing one more dead enemy. She had killed it, and something special sparkled around her--a magical barrier. It was purple with pink lights flashing inside it, dazzling her. The barrier was one of the most beautiful things she had ever seen.

The horned creatures didn't seem to like the barrier near as much as Kagome did. They pranced around her, snorting and throwing their head about, voicing their frustration. Not one dared charge at her and test its own luck. None were that stupid.

"Bakuryuuha!" Inuyasha shouted, but no power surge came. "Shit." It seemed like he had exhausted out his new power for the moment. He was even tired himself. While Kagome had put up the barrier, he had killed another hurrok, leaving five more for him to kill. He wasn't sure if he could do it, mainly because he was beginning to tire.

Kagome noticed how much trouble the hanyou was having, and her heart stopped when she watched the remaining five hurroks all swoop down at him at once. "Look out!" she screamed, pointing. 

The dog demon crouched down, raising his sword in a defensive position. He was slowly growing tired, but at least he was still strong enough to defend himself. 

His triangular ears twitched as he waited for the enemy to come closer. They did, but not all at once. As he dodged one, another hurrok came down to attack him, making it hard to dodge. He was lucky enough to avoid the first four hurroks, but the fifth one succeeded. It raked its claws across Inuyasha's back, sending the silver-haired demon hurtling to the ground face first.

"NO!" Kagome screamed, her power erupting from her as her worry level skyrocketed. She didn't want Inuyasha to die; she wouldn't let him die. She cared too much about him to let that happen.

Purple-pink magic flowed through the entire battlefield, engulfing everything from the killer unicorns to the hurroks to Inuyasha. Everyone and everything became surrounded by the miko magic, the power pulsing in time to the raven-haired girl's heartbeat. 

Slowly, the magic faded, leaving Kagome and Inuyasha standing alone on the battlefield. All the enemy was gone, and the hanyou was fully healed.

"What was that?!" he demanded to know, rushing over to the miko, who was still wounded.

Kagome smiled weakly at him. "My power." Then, she collapsed, barely giving the half demon enough time to catch her. She had exhausted herself by using so much power, leaving her helpless. 

Inuyasha shook his head and scooped both her and her fallen bow up. She would be fine soon enough. All he would have to do was wait... not that he was any good at that. He was just happy she was alive and safe. Of course, he still felt angry deep down inside. Someone had sent hurroks after them, a fact that disturbed and infuriated him.

_'The Elves are going to pay.' _

  


* * *

The blond haired woman clapped her hands, her blue eyes twinkling. "Kagome did marvelous, didn't she? I've never seen a special miko kill so many monsters at once. She deserves our congratulations for such a feat." 

The dark-skinned female snorted. "There have been others like her in the past with such powers, and besides, this is only a game."

"Let us not worry about whether or not we should congratulate Kagome," the silver-haired one stated. "I believe we have more important things to occupy our time with." 

The second woman grinned. "You're right, and joys of joys... Sesshoumaru has logged on!" She giggled. "Now the fun can begin."

  


* * *

Inuyasha smiled as he entered ancient Japan late in the morning, Kagome on his back, her arms wrapped around his shoulders. She seemed happy too, although her joy was partly due to the fact that she had learned how to use her powers better. Of course, he was happy about that fact, too.

"So, Inuyasha, do you have any idea where the statue is?" the miko inquired, leaning so that she was closer to his ears. She had regained consciousness about an hour ago, which she was thankful for. Whenever a person became unconscious in the game, they basically couldn't see, hear, or feel anything. It was total sense deprivation, and she hated that. 

"Not a clue," he replied after a moment. He really couldn't remember much of the conversation with the queen of Egypt. All he recalled was that the Shikon no Tama was in the base of some statue in ancient Japan. "You?" 

"Just that it's in the Japanese palace like Cleopatra said... wherever the palace is." Kagome sighed, biting on her bottom lip. Without knowing where to look, they would never find the object. Suddenly, her eyes widened, and her face brightened. "Oh! Of course! Why didn't I think of this before?!" She laughed at her own silliness as relief filled her. Things weren't so bad after all.

"What are you talking about?" Inuyasha demanded to know, feeling completely confused. The girl wasn't making any sense, at least to him. _'Has she flipped or something?' _he wondered, frowning slightly. Perhaps there had been a glitch in the game and the character was still running around while Kagome had logged out.

"Lady Kaede!" the raven-haired girl exclaimed. She felt so stupid for not thinking of the old miko before. Kaede had always been willing to help, so she saw no reason why the woman wouldn't help them find the palace. "She'll know where the Japanese palace is!" she stated, smiling for all she was worth She briefly tightened her grip on Inuyasha's shoulders in a make-shift hug. "And her village is relatively close by." She pointed in the direction she knew Kaede lived in--the east. 

The dog demon didn't know who Kaede was exactly, although he had heard people mention her name once or twice before. Why Kaede would help them he didn't know; but he trusted Kagome. So, he began to run off in the direction she had indicated.

The miko laughed softly as Inuyasha ran at top speed, enjoying the quick pace. All her time with the hanyou had given her a love of speed, and besides, she loved it when he carried her on his back. It was exhilarating; however, she had a feeling that he was spoiling her in a way, carrying her around as he always did. Not that she minded, of course. 

Kagome watched the scenery rush by, and before she knew it, they were at the village. It amazed her how easily she lost track of time when she was with the dog demon, just simply enjoying herself. 

"There's her hut," she informed the male, pointing at a small building. It had been a while since she had seen it, but the hut was easy to recognize. Like most things in the game, it didn't change. 

Inuyasha stopped right outside the door, gently setting Kagome down. Then, he gestured towards the hut. "After you." 

She smiled and kissed him on the cheek, blushing afterwards. "Thank you." Cheeks still tainted pink, she walked inside, the inu youkai at her heels.

Kagome breathed in the scent of herbs as she walked across the wooden floor towards an old woman dressed in miko clothing. "Good morning, Kaede," she greeted the elder, a smile on her face. 

"It almost be afternoon, child," Kaede replied, her old voice filled with untold wisdom. "And what brings ye and this youkai friend of ye to my door?" 

"Do you know where the Japanese palace is?" Inuyasha inquired, tone rude and blunt. 

"Inuyasha!" Kagome scolded, ashamed at his behavior. No one was supposed to act like that around the old miko. They were supposed to show respect. 

The inu youkai huffed while Kaede laughed. "It be alright, child," she stated. "I was not insulted." 

"Good. Then answer the question," he responded, earning a glare from Kagome. He felt a little bad for making her angry, but he wasn't good at being nice to people he didn't know. Once someone got to know him, he was usually okay, but everyone else... well... they were just out of luck when they finally met up with him, which was pretty much what was happening with Kaede. 

The old miko looked up at him. "I hope ye are not so cruel toward the young lady," she told the dog demon, making him look at her in surprise. "And as for this palace ye speak of, I know where it is." 

"Okay, and where exactly is it?" Kagome prompted, watching the other female with intense eyes. She really, really wanted to know where to find the Shikon no Tama.

"The palace is just outside of a taiyoukai's realm, far to the west," Kaede said, not liking the idea of sending them anywhere near a taiyoukai. Taiyoukais were dangerous players to mess with, mainly because they were powerful demons that could change their domain, their territory, to their liking at anytime. Basically, they pretty much had complete control over an area. "The palace is perhaps a five hour walk from here."

Inuyasha grinned, not feeling even an ounce of fear or anxiety about the taiyoukai. He would just make sure not to anger the player, and he'd be fine. "I can cut that down to about an hour." He was proud of his youkai abilities, especially since they gave him so many advantages over the other players. Also, he was strong, even for a half demon. There were quite a few full demons who couldn't best him, as he had proven quite well.

"Thank you, Lady Kaede," Kagome stated politely. 

"Anytime, child," the old woman replied. "And good luck on ye quest." 

Thanking her one last time, Kagome left the hut, Inuyasha following her after saying a quick good-bye to the old woman as well. 

Once they were outside the hut, Inuyasha knelt down, silently telling Kagome to climb on. When she didn't, he grew worried. Was something wrong? Was she angry at him? He didn't know, but he certainly did care... not that he would tell her that.

"Instead of leaving immediately, Inuyasha," the raven-haired miko began. "Perhaps we could make a break for lunch and such? I'd really like that."

He stood up and nodded. "Sure. We'll meet back here in an hour?" 

"Sounds great. See you then!" Kagome gave him a quick hug good-bye and then logged off. 

Inuyasha stood there for a moment, thinking about everything that had happened recently. He had kissed her on the cheek, which had spawned quite a number of intimate actions that the miko had initiated. For some reason, he wasn't exactly sure how he felt about her. He didn't love her, but his feelings definitely went beyond like, and he guessed they would only grow stronger as he continued to spend time with her. 

_'Perhaps I should see if we could meet at one of those little cafes so I can get to know her better. That'd certainly be fun, and I'd get to talk to the real Kagome,' _he thought, raking a hand through his hair. _'Yeah. Once her quest is over, I'll do that.' _

Smiling, he logged off himself. 

  


* * *

Inuyasha slipped his helmet off and shook out his black locks as his violet eyes gazed around at his surroundings, taking in every plain detail. His floor was a neutral brown color, and his walls were white. His bed had simple navy blue sheets and a matching comforter. The wooden closet door was closed, as was his room door. A small desk with a clock on it and a chair in front of it sat in a corner, leaving his room plain and dull. 

Setting the VR helmet down, he walked down the hall, glancing through an open door as he did so. He saw his brother immersed in VR, black hair falling down to the back of his thighs. If his eyes had been open, they would have been a soft hazel, like their father's eyes. They both had their mother's hair though.

_'He needs to cut his hair,' _Inuyasha thought as he continued on his way, passing by his parents' room. _'He looks too girlie like that.' _

Letting his thoughts wander, he visited the bathroom and then ordered some food. A small robot quickly brought it, and he quickly ate it in his room, letting a 'bot clean up the dishes when he was done. 

With plenty of time to spare, Inuyasha stretched out on his bed, his mind on Kagome. For some reason or another, he had trouble when it came to getting her off his mind. Every time he logged off, he could still she her whenever he closed his eyes. At first it had been annoying, but he had quickly come to treasure that fact, enjoying his ability to picture her so easily. 

He sighed happily and closed his eyes as he envisioned her raven locks glistening in the sunlight, swirling about her as she moved, her brown eyes sparkling with joy and laughter.

Inuyasha opened his violet orbs and sat up, glancing at the clock. He was supposed to be back in ancient Japan in five minutes. It seemed time slipped away from him whenever he thought of Kagome, not that he minded all that much. Being bored and having time crawl by was much worse. 

With a small smile on his face, he went over to the VR equipment and slipped on the helmet. 

  


* * *

Inuyasha was back outside Kaede's hut at exactly the right time. Basically, he arrived before Kagome did. Of course, he only had to wait a minute for the miko to appear.

"Shall we get going?" she asked him, gesturing towards the west.

"Yeah." The dog demon nodded and knelt down, hoping that Kagome would actually get on his back. She did, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and resting her head against his back. 

"Let's go!" Kagome stated enthusiastically, feeling much more optimistic than she ever had. Her quest was almost complete, and the best part was that after the quest, Inuyasha would continue to hang around her. She couldn't think of anything better, especially since she wanted to learn more about him. 

_'He turned out to be a pretty good guy... even though he kind of acted like a jerk at first. I guess he grew on me,' _she thought, rubbing her cheek against his back. Then, she closed her eyes, relaxing and leaving everything up to the hanyou. After all, she did trust him. 

  


* * *

Sesshoumaru grinned as he sensed two people enter his domain, his golden eyes lighting up. _ 'A miko and a hanyou,' _he thought, glancing out the window as he brushed long strands of silver hair over his shoulder. He was a dog demon... a strong one, which he considered an incredibly good thing. No one wanted to mess with him, unless he counted the two fools that had just entered his domain. _ 'Well, they'll certainly learn quick enough not to trespass on my lands.' _

Flexing his long fingers, he sent out some of his power, willing the land to do what he wanted. Of course, the land obeyed.

"Enjoy, trespassers." 

  


* * *

Inuyasha growled softly as he slowed to a walk. Something was wrong, extremely wrong. He had been running for over two hours, and he hadn't seemed to get anywhere. Ever since he had entered the taiyoukai's domain, he had stayed within sight of the castle, even though he had never strayed from his path of due west. 

"Is something wrong?" Kagome inquired, opening her eyes. She always took his growling as a bad sign, since it did mean that he was angry or annoyed. 

"I think the taiyoukai is doing something... messing around and such," he replied, looking at his surroundings. "No matter how fast or how long I run, I can't seem to go anywhere." 

She blinked, surprised. "Perhaps we just need to head in a different direction to get out of his territory then?" she suggested, tone calm and reasonable. 

"Alright then." Inuyasha tried going east, south, and then north. No matter what he tried, he couldn't seem to go anywhere. It was if he was on one of the old-fashioned exercise walker things called treadmills that he had seen on the Internet. He just kept running and running, but he never moved an inch. 

After many failed attempts, Kagome made a sound of irritation. "This is stupid," she commented. "Why can't we leave?"

"Because the taiyoukai is playing with us," the dog demon responded.

"And I take it he'd be in the castle, right?" She cocked her head slightly to the right, thinking. Overhead she could see birds flying, singing their pretty songs. They seemed to have no problems moving about, which gave her an idea.

"Yeah, probably," Inuyasha answered, unsure about what she was thinking. She was up to something, that was for sure, and he could help but wonder what.

Kagome grinned evilly. "I think I can figure out how to get us somewhere," she stated, picking up her bow and notching an arrow. "Miko magic is supposed to be good for protection and dispelling magic. Perhaps I can use my magic to free us long enough to go have a little chat with this taiyoukai." 

"Do whatever you need to," he replied, feeling a little surprised. It certainly sounded like a good idea to him, and he wasn't sure whether or not he ever would have thought of that. "I'll help in any way I can." 

"Just hold still," she told him, taking aim and firing the arrow. The shaft arched through the air, curving perfectly before heading back down and striking the base of the castle, leaving a trail of purple-pink magic on the ground. "Now run towards the castle! And stay where my magic is!" 

Inuyasha did what Kagome asked, quickly finding out that her magic stung his bare feet. The good part about the magic was that it actually allowed him to travel. How it did that exactly, he really didn't know, but it was certainly nice. "What are you trying to do, make it so my feet have to be chopped off?" he growled out, tone softer than normal. While he wasn't happy with his situation, he had a feeling that she wouldn't be able to do anything about it.

"I'm sorry, really I am, but this is the way my magic works," the miko replied. "Maybe someday I'll figure out a way to keep it from hurting you, but I can't do that now. At the moment, you can either deal with the little bit of pain, or you can choose to stand still until the taiyoukai grows tired of you. It's your choice." 

"I'd rather not be a sitting duck for whoever wants to attack me," Inuyasha replied immediately as they came up to the castle door. Without even bothering to knock, the hanyou used his claw attack to break down the wooden front door, leaving it in shreds. 

Kagome gasped in surprise at his blatant lack of manners and patience. "It wouldn't kill you to try entering a peaceful way, would it?" she inquired as he set her down beyond all the wood debris. 

"The taiyoukai's being a jerk and not letting us pass. Breaking the door was the least I could do to return the kind favor," he stated, looking around at the courtyard. It was huge, filled with trees, flowering bushes, and rich green grass. Paths circled around the courtyard and criss-crossed it, and hallways went off, leading to other parts of the castle, which had to be huge, just like the courtyard. 

"I wonder who the taiyoukai is," the miko whispered softly. 

"The taiyoukai is me," a masculine voice said as a tall figure stepped into view. It was a male dog demon with long silver hair and golden eyes, much like Inuyasha's. Unfortunately, he had pointed ears instead of fuzzy triangular ones, and he was wearing very different clothing. He had on black boots, white pants, a white kimono shirt with a red sakura pattern, black armor, and a yellow and purple sash that went around his waist and tied in the front. He had a dark blue crescent moon on his forehead as well as two red strips on each cheek. Matching red strips were on his wrists, and he had two swords at his waist. 

"So you're the weaklings who entered my domain without my permission," the armored male continued, voice calm and face stoic. "I'm amazed you actually made it to my castle, although you will die now for breaking down my door and storming about my castle."

"Sorry, but we don't plan on dying!" Inuyasha drew his sword, allowing it to transform into its gleaming powerful form. He charged at the other inu youkai, swinging the blade recklessly. The taiyoukai gracefully dodged every blow, making it look like he wasn't even trying. 

"Is that the best you can do?" he inquired, looking down at the hanyou. "If that is, then I must say that I am rather disappointed. I had expected you to be at least a little stronger and a little more skilled." 

"Hold still and I'll show you how strong and skilled I am!" the hanyou retorted, still swinging the Tetsusaiga. Every time he thought one of his hits would land, the other demon moved out of the way, movements flawless. 

Kagome watched the battle, eyes wide. Never before had she seen Inuyasha do so badly against an opponent, and she instantly grew worried about him. It seemed that he needed help. "Incoming!" she shouted as she fired an arrow at the taiyoukai, but he dodged her missile as well. She tried a few more times, but he kept on dodging everything her and Inuyasha threw at him. 

"I tire of this. Die." The taiyoukai's claws began to grow a sickly green color, and he stood his ground as the hanyou charged him once again.

"Inuyasha!" the miko screamed, a good idea as to what the green color hinted at. "Stay away from his claws! They're probably full of poison!"

The taiyoukai blinked. "Inuyasha?" he repeated, letting his poison fade away as he dodged some more of the hanyou's attacks. "Little brother?"

Inuyasha froze, his blade in a defensive position. "What?" he inquired, confused. "What did you just say?" He frowned. Something just wasn't making sense.

"Yes, I do believe you are him." The taiyoukai shook his head.

"Believe I am who!?" the hanyou almost screamed in annoyance. He hated it when people were so vague and beat around the bush.

"Little brother, you should learn to be more patient," he advised.

Kagome stood there, dumbfounded. _'What is going on? I'm confused. Weren't they just fighting?' she thought. 'And now they're talking, with the taiyoukai calling Inuyasha his little brother.' _

"And you shouldn't act as if you're my big brother!" Inuyasha snapped, growling.

The taiyoukai shook his head. "You do not learn quickly, do you?" he asked, and the hanyou instantly took it as an insult, protesting immediately. The tattooed demon ignored everything. "I am Sesshoumaru, you're older brother in the real world, so show some respect and shut that dirty mouth of yours. I see no reason to tolerate it." 

Kagome decided to step in right there before Inuyasha got into a huge fight with the taiyoukai. "You're Inuyasha's brother?" she inquired softly, looking up at the tall inu youkai. 

He nodded. "Yes, unfortunately."

"Well, he's helping me on my quest, and we would like to pass through your lands, would you allow us to do that?" she asked politely, hoping that he wouldn't have a problem with that. She really, really wanted to get out of his territory. 

Sesshoumaru considered the question as Inuyasha continued to grumble about something or another. "Yes, I will, if only to be rid of my younger brother and his foul attitude." He flicked his wrist. "I've fixed it so you can leave."

"Thank you," Kagome replied, smiling. "I appreciate it." 

"Whatever," Inuyasha muttered. "You're still a cold-hearted bastard!" He shook his fist at the retreating back of his brother, but the taiyoukai didn't even bother turning around.

The miko shook her head and grabbed the hanyou's hand. "C'mon. Let's get going." Her actions had an immediate effect on him, calming him down enough so that he sheathed his sword and smiled down at her.

"Alright." Then, hand in hand, they walked out of Sesshoumaru's domain.

  


* * *

  


* * *

  


* * *

CotA: I think I told someone that Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru wouldn't be related. Sorry, but I changed my mind. *sweatdrops* Sorry. I sometimes do that.

Sess-chan: You are just plain confusing.

CotA: Oh, shush. I know that.

Sess-chan: Perhaps you should consider either not answering questions or planning out your stories more thorougly before you respond.

CotA: It's your fault I changed that fact. Since you and Sigmund went on vacation... *pauses* By the way, where is Sigmund?

Sess-chan: *smirks* He decided that being your muse was too much work. He's staying in Fiji. 

CotA: That's okay, I guess. *shrugs* I picked up a new muse while you were gone. 

Sess-chan: Dare I even ask? 

CotA: May I introduce to you, Zebez! A character from Cursed Blood. 

Zebez: *enters and looks around* Nice place. *sits down on the couch* 

Sess-chan: And what exactly is he? 

CotA: *grinning* He's a half demon, and quite cute, might I add. *looks up at Sess-chan* He's almost as tall as you. Wow... I think I like his yellow eyes better though, and his short black hair is nice too, especially since he spikes it. 

Sess-chan: *growling* And when did I give you permission to bring another demon into my territory? 

CotA: *shrugs* It's my home, and I'm the authoress. Since you were gone, I took the liberty of getting a muse who is a little more dependable. Besides, I like him. 

Sess-chan: *glaring* Readers, entertain youselves with the review responses below whilst I kill a half demon. 

Zebez: *remaining completely calm* Are you the jealous type? I hope not, because I plan on seeing just how much fun CotA will let me have with her. I bet she's wonderful when it comes to creativity, seeing how she's an authoress and everything. 

CotA: EEK! Sess-chan! *tries to stop Sess-chan from walking towards Zebez* No killing in my domain, remember?

Sess-chan: *crosses his arms* Fine. 

black fire rose: I will tell you when I update. No problem.

Pline: Thanks. I'll try to.

Inu009: *giggles* I loved the "@_@" face at the end. It was cute. Anyways, I'm glad I can surprise you. I enjoy doing stuff like that.

sashlea: Yeah. He isn't much of a warrior in the show. Sure, he likes showing off his abilities, but that's about it. And thanks for telling me about my spelling error. It's hard to catch everything when my chappies are so long.

Kittymui: They get to go find the jewel, that's what the get to do, but Inuyasha isn't happy about that. Poor guy.

Rebecca: Time in the game goes by pretty much exactly the same as in the real world. And as for school... there is no school... there is no work. Everyone spends their time in the VR world. 

Lady Rose Jade: I'll see if I can check it out, but I can't promise anything. I have a bad memory, and I personally suck at reviewing.

Kim: Of course they're up to something. *laughs* Why would I put them in the story if they weren't up to something? And I hate to tell you, but you won't be seeing Miroku, Shippou, or Sango until the next story. Sorry. 

Bikutoria: I think there has been one person who has complained about Inuyasha being OOC, but I didn't worry about it too much. And I really don't mind you telling me my spelling errors. That's one of the reasons I post. I enjoy getting feedback, and I suck at spelling. Oh, and I take it you like Kouga quite a bit, huh? And as for the real world, no one really has a life. No one works or goes to school. It's... kind of a rather advanced almost utopian society. I hope that answered your question. 

kumiko-chan: I adore Sesshoumaru, and I'll try to put in more cute fluffy scenes. 

drake220: *rolls on the floor while laughing* OMG! 'The always sexy sessy-chan'? Where did that come from? I've never heard anyone say something like that. I've commented on how cute Sesshoumaru is, but I've never said anything like what you said. And I'll see if I can go deeper into their heads. 

Lady Icykimi: Yeah, they have quite a bit of time left, so they're doing pretty good. And I'm glad you're thrilled about seeing Fluffy. 

Inu-Chan03: You're not yelling too much, and thanks for all the compliments. I'm sorry if I don't update very fast, but I do try.

ladynight: Yes, I've read almost all of Tamora Pierce's books. I've read everything but whatever short stories she might have out as well as Trickster's Choice. And I don't think I can put Tkaa in. He wouldn't really fit. Sorry.

demented-squrriel: Nothing's wrong with where they live, but VR is the main part of their society. *sighs* Obviously I haven't found anyone yet who has read the Diadem series. Darn it. Oh, and thanks for the suggestion. 

Purple Witchy Angel: I'll relay the message to Sess-chan. I don't know how he'll take it though. 

View: Thanks for the compliment. I appreciate it. ^_^

cc: Yes, the chapter uploaded wrong. And I will keep writing, don't worry. 

KCK: It should be all fixed now.

power2thepink: Thanks. ^_^ I like getting compliments, even when something screws up.

Xio the Dog Demoness: You normally love my story? Cool. I'll have to make sure to improve as I continue to write to keep you interested. 

Yanou: The author of Diadem is... John Peel, but the books are no longer in print. I'm not sure why. I've found books four and six (the ones I'm missing) on ebay for $50 and $100 respectfully. Needless to say, I'm not going to be buying them. 

eruinichil: Sorry about the driving you crazy thing, but I like keeping secrets. Besides... I promised Sess-chan that I wouldn't tell. 

Sakura onto Hitomi: Thanks for the correction. I appreciate it. *hugs Sakura-chan*

inuyasha kagome2: thanks. ^_^ I'll try to update soon.

doriimuenzeru: I fixed it up so it's all okay now. Enjoy!

Chibi Keiko: *laughs* Yes, go Inuyasha.

Knight Star: It was the site messing up. ff.net does that every so often.

Rebecca: I fixed everything, and thanks for telling me. You were number two to mention the problem, and about 20 people repeated pretty much what you said. *sighs* So many reviews... so little said. 

Jumper Prime: I'm sorry. The chapter was fine when I used the document manager, but I guess it went screwy when I actually loaded it. 

SilentSlayer: Thanks for reviewing, and I think your question was answered.


	7. Chapter 7

Virtual Reality 

Chapter Seven

"Do you think we're out of Sesshoumaru's realm yet?" Kagome inquired, stopping and leaning lightly against a tree. She was tired of walking, and her feet were beginning to hurt. The cloth shoes she had on were not made for walking, unfortunately for her. How Inuyasha could stand traveling in bare feet, she didn't know. He probably had thick calluses on the bottom of his feet or something.

"We probably have a few more miles to go. His lands extend for longer than I ever expected," the inu hanyou replied, halting to look at her. His golden eyes instantly softened when he noticed her rubbing her feet. She couldn't quite take all the walking, even though it was only a game. He made a mental note to make sure to carry her for a while as soon as they took up traveling again._ 'Besides, I like carrying her.' _

"Now, why didn't your brother ever tell you that he was a taiyoukai in this game?" she wanted to know, curious. She didn't see why Sesshoumaru wouldn't have at least bragged a little. Taiyoukai's were rare and powerful, and being one was definitely something to be proud of. Personally, she would have almost preferred being a taiyoukai over a miko. She would have more than welcomed the high level of power a taiyoukai possessed. 

"We don't talk much, probably because he's got his head stuck too far up his ass," Inuyasha answered nonchalantly. He didn't consider his relationship with Sesshoumaru all that important. They were only brothers. "If we do talk, we tend to get into little verbal spats. Nothing big though."

She sat down on the ground, crossing her legs and resting her palms on her knee as she made sure that her bow and quiver didn't pose a problem. "That's too bad," the miko commented, sympathizing with him. _ 'Does he talk to no one at home?' _she wondered, feeling bad for him. "At least I get along with my brother okay. We usually don't fight."

Inuyasha shrugged and tucked his hands into his huge haori sleeves. He didn't see why she was making such a big deal out of his relationship with his brother, but he did appreciate her concern. It was nice having such a good friend. "I really don't care too much. He's annoying and a little too full of himself sometimes." 

"Maybe you just need to get to know him," Kagome suggested, voice kind. She really wanted to help him in any way she could, even if it was only giving advice. _ 'He's helped me, so it's only fair that I help him.' _"It certainly can't hurt, and you might just find out that he isn't as bad as you think." She smiled at him. "I thought you were a complete jerk when I first met you."_ 'I don't think that about him now though. Quite the opposite actually.' _She mentally grinned at the thought.

His face fell. "Well, thank you, Kagome. I feel so much better now," he responded sarcastically. It irked him to think that she had considered him a jerk for a while; however, he was mad at himself, not at her. He sat down on the ground next to the raven-haired girl, crossing his legs. "So... when did you stop thinking I was a jerk?"

Her expression became thoughtful as her eyes gazed off into the far distance. "I'm not quite sure," she answered. "Sometime while we were waiting in Delphi for the Oracle to give us an answer." She shrugged. "That was when I really started to get to know you."

"Alright, so it took you about a week, huh?" Inuyasha sighed. He wasn't sure what answer he had been expecting, but that hadn't been it. Of course, he had been hoping that she would say only a few days, but he had obviously been wrong. "Why didn't you tell me what you thought of me earlier?" 

"Because you were sweet enough to help me, and because you promised to protect me," Kagome replied softly, her expression kind. "I didn't want you to withdraw your promise because I acted rude or something towards you." 

He raised an eyebrow at that. "But you could yell at me?" He chuckled in amusement as Kagome blushed.

"I guess I let my temper get the best of me." The miko looked over at him, feeling her heart strings tug at his handsome expression. Her blush deepened slightly as she realized something. _ 'I love him. I don't know how, but I do.' _ She smiled at him. "But if I remember correctly, you deserved it every time." 

Inuyasha scratched one of his ears, the motion completely adorable in the miko's eyes. She loved his cute dog ears. "I don't think so," he retorted evenly, as if he wasn't even slightly annoyed with her statement, which he wasn't. He didn't see any reason to become angry. After all, Kagome was the best friend he had ever had.

Kagome was about to respond to that when she saw something that she hadn't been expecting in the least. She blinked, brown eyes full of surprise as a sky blue fairy flew up to her, fluttering in front of her face. "Inuyasha..." She pointed at the flying creature, unsure of what she was supposed to do. 

The hanyou stared at the fairy, just as surprised as the miko. _ 'Why is that thing here? We haven't completed the quest yet, and it's not like it can give me another quest, not so soon after my last one,' _he thought.

_'Perhaps it has the response to Inuyasha's email,' _she mused hopefully. _ 'But then, why would it fly up to me and not him?' _ Something didn't seem right, and she began to worry.

"Kagome, your time limit on your quest has been changed," it stated. "The Shikon no Tama is due in two days."

"WHAT?" Inuyasha roared, grabbing the fairy out of midair. His golden eyes were slowly bled to red, revealing his anger. No one was supposed to mess with Kagome like that. "Listen up, you stupid light bulb. You had better be joking!" 

The miko just stared at the glowing messenger in shock. She couldn't believe it; she couldn't believe it at all. The Elves had actually done something incredibly unfair to her. Not only had they assigned her a difficult quest to begin with in her second month, but they had also cheated Inuyasha on his time limit. _'And now they want to change the terms they set for me? I don't think so!' _

"The Shikon no Tama is due in two days," it repeated, sounding like a faulty sound file. The voice was even a little monotone.

She glared at it, beyond furious. "You can't just go and change the due date any time you like!" she shouted angrily, brown eyes blazing like fire. "You said I had a year when I started this stupid quest, so I still have quite a few months left! Changing my time limit now would be completely unfair and wrong!! You just can't change it.. not now!" 

The fairy didn't even look at the miko. "The Shikon no Tama is due in two days." 

"Well, you can go back and tell those fucking Elves that they're a bunch of assholes and that I'm gonna kick their butts for being complete bastards once I've finished helping Kagome!" The hanyou shook the being in his grasp, trying to make sure it understood how serious he was. No one was going to get away with abusing Kagome like that, not while he was around. "Did you hear me?!" 

The fairy didn't even seem to register that someone was yelling at it. It seemed that the light bulb had gone out. "The Shikon no Tama is due in two days."

Kagome buried her head in her hands, wishing that she would never hear those nine words again. The stupid fairy was being far to repetitive. _ 'I'm really beginning to hate those messenger fairies.' _

"ARGH!" Inuyasha hurled the creature off into the distance out of anger, finally fed up with the constant repetition of the one phrase. He continued to fume and shout insults at the winged being until it vanished into the horizon. "Stupid daft light bulb," he muttered darkly, annoyance apparent on his face. 

"For once, I agree with you," Kagome said, scowling. "The Elves are being bastards, and the fairies are dimwits. The stupid council has gone too far this time. When I bring the Shikon no Tama to them, I plan to give them a piece of my mind."

"And I plan to give them a piece of my fist." The hanyou cracked his knuckles, his golden eyes flashing dangerously. He could just imagine punching each and every member of the Elven Council in the stomach and watching them clutch at their abdomens in pain. For being such bastards, they deserved it. _'Those Elves have earned a severe pounding, even if it is only a virtual one.' _

The miko sighed, letting go of the majority of her anger... at least for the moment._ 'I really, really don't ever want to see a fairy again. If I do, I think I may just see if I can trap it in a pretty little glass jar and stick it on my windowsill as decoration.' _"Well, if we only have two days, we'd better get going." She stood up, expression still unhappy. "Ready, Inuyasha?" 

He nodded and moved in front of her, kneeling. "Get on," he ordered. "Your feet are tired, so I'll carry you for a while. Besides, we'll cover a greater distance if you get on my back, and we don't have time to waste." 

Kagome smiled; she had absolutely no problem with letting him carry her. "Alright." She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and allowed him to pick her up. It felt natural as well as nice. She didn't want to walk anymore, and even though she was in a game, her feet still hurt. "Thank you."_ 'He can be so sweet sometimes.' _

"You're welcome," he replied, feeling her rub her cheek against his back. He blushed at her strange actions. "Now, let's see how much distance we can cover before we log off for the night." They had already taken their break for supper about an hour ago.

Kagome tightened her grip slightly when Inuyasha took off at top speed, running across the fields faster than anyone else she had ever seen. The scenery became a green blur, leaving the miko nothing really interesting to watch. She wouldn't have minded gazing up at Inuyasha's face as he ran, but she was stuck on his back. His hair whipped about, but she had learned a while back how to keep from getting hit in the face with it. She just pressed the side of her face to the hanyou's back and let the silver tresses snap and whip about above her.

Within moments, she was completely relaxed, the virtual heat from his back feeling wonderful against the front of her body. A small smile on her face, she began to hum to help pass the time. 

Inuyasha's ears rotated toward the wonderful sound coming from the person on his back. She really did have a beautiful voice, which didn't surprise him. She was just a lovely person all around. _ 'Does she know how amazing her voice is?' _he wondered. "What are you singing?" 

The miko paused, blinking in surprise. She hadn't expected Inuyasha to take such an interest in something so trivial as a simple song. _'He didn't sound annoyed though, which means that he probably liked it.' _She smiled. "Just a song I found on the internet a couple months ago. Why do you ask?"

He was about to reply when his nose picked up the scent of demons... lots of them. "We are in trouble," he stated.

"How? What is it?" Kagome inquired, voice tinted with worry. She didn't like how she was constantly attacked. In her first two months on the game, she had encountered not even one demon or monster that wanted to kill her. Suddenly, right after receiving her quest, she kept running into so many things and people that wanted her dead. It just didn't seem right.

Inuyasha turned to face the direction he knew the enemy was coming in. "Demons." 

  


* * *

"Are you sure it was a good idea to make sure that the head bird of paradise was given a quest to kidnap a miko and take her to the entrance of Soku-no-Kumi?" the silver-haired woman inquired, one of her pale hands resting on the edge of the reflecting pool. Soku-no-Kumi was a place she severely disliked. 

The dark-skinned woman shrugged, her dark eyes tinted with mischievousness. "Perhaps it wasn't, but it's too late to change things now. I would like to see how Inuyasha reacts to Kagome being kidnapped." 

The blonde walked over to the other two, her blue eyes tinged with worry. "I don't know what to think about this. If your plan succeeds, then our jobs will be complete. If it fails... then we'll have so much more work to do." She sighed. "It seems too chancy almost, but I have to admit, it was a good idea." 

The black-haired woman snorted. "Of course it was a good idea," she retorted. "I've never had a bad one, and I know that everything will be just fine. You two just wait and see." 

  


* * *

Inuyasha set Kagome down and drew his sword, the rusted blade quickly transforming. The miko notched an arrow, her eyes searching the area for any approaching demons. She saw nothing. The ground was bare of all animal life... even bugs. 

"What's going on?" she muttered, frowning as she began to scan the skies. All she could see were fluffy white clouds and the blue atmosphere. "Where are they?"

"They're close," the hanyou replied, looking around for the enemy as well, but he had the same amount of luck--none. _'Something isn't right. I can smell the demons, and the scent's so strong that they have to be nearby. The only question is, where? Where could they possibly hide? Everything's too open around here, unless they can become invisible or something.' _

"This doesn't make sense," she stated, taking a few steps to get a slightly different view of the area. Still, she could see nothing out of the ordinary. "Since you can smell them, they're obviously here, but where are they hiding? Underground, maybe?"

He growled. "I don't know, but I have a feeling the bastard Elves have something to do with this," he said, tone dark and rough. "Now I know they have it in for us."

"You're probably right," Kagome agreed, trying to send out her power so she could sense the demons. She failed miserably. "And I can't sense them at all, which isn't saying much." She sighed. _ 'I really, really wish my magic allowed me to sense demons. It would make my life so much easier, especially in cases like this when Inuyasha needs my help.' _

"There's something really fishy about all of this," the inu youkai told her, lowering his sword to the ground. "But... maybe the demons are just trying to put us on edge or something." _'It's not like I can come up with a better conclusion.' _

"That sounds logical," she replied, nodding her head in agreement. "After all, if the demons actually meant us harm, they probably would have attacked us by now." _'I hope that's the case here, because if we find out that we were wrong...' _ She didn't even want to think about the consequences, which the worst would most likely be death.

"Where are they hi-" Inuyasha cut himself off when fifteen demons came flying out from behind the clouds, revealing their hiding spot. They were ugly demons--creatures that were a mix of bird and human. Their wingspan was at least twenty or thirty feet, and the mouth took up most of the body; however, on top of the winged head, a human torso twisted and moved. One even pointed at Kagome. 

"Get them!" one of the enemies shouted, speaking with the mouth on the human part of it. 

Kagome instantly began firing arrows, trying her best to hit the moving targets. She did a decent job on her accuracy, but they didn't have much of an effect. Her purifying magic was useless against the new enemy. They merely hissed in annoyance every time a shaft struck them, pulling it out if it was close enough to their human arms.

"I hate the birds of paradise," the inu hanyou grumbled as he sliced one of the attackers in half, letting it fall to the ground in two bloody sections. The birds of paradise were relatively slow and weak, so he didn't have too much trouble with them. Unfortunately, they tended to work well in a group, which made killing them a little harder. Plus, there was so much more of them... not that he couldn't deal with them. He just preferred to have more even odds.

The miko swore darkly as another one of her arrows hit its mark but caused no damage. It seemed that she was just having no luck whatsoever, and that was something that she couldn't tolerate, for the main reason that she didn't want to end up hurt or dead, even in a virtual world. Praying that she could figure out her magic soon, she reached back to her quiver for another arrow. She was met with nothing. Her quiver was empty, which meant that things would only become worse.

Kagome groaned, quickly realizing that she was completely vulnerable without them. She was a miko without a weapon and without effective magic. _ 'This is beyond bad,' _she thought nervously, biting her bottom lip.

The birds of paradise also noticed that she was helpless, five of them swooping down at the raven-haired girl, their bird claws outstretched and ready to grab her. Automatically, she raced towards Inuyasha, her protector and her friend. He was about twenty feet away, dealing with about eight of the enemy, some of which bore her arrows in their bodies.

"Inuyasha!" she shouted, praying that she wouldn't end up dead before she could reach him. She knew that he would save her from the ugly birds; all she had to do was get close enough to him.

The silver-haired demon turned, his golden eyes instantly falling on Kagome. She was in trouble, big trouble. An expression of worry on his face, he ran toward her as fast as he could, slashing at any demon that dared get in his way. 

He was about five feet away from her when a rather big bird of paradise swooped down and grabbed Kagome, taking her into the air with it. The miko screamed for help, her brown eyes pleading. She attempted to struggle out of the demon's grasp, instinctively reaching down for the hanyou.

Inuyasha jumped as hard and as high as he could, trying to grab onto Kagome's hand. As he approached her, time seemed to slow down. Twenty feet away, he could see the worry in her eyes, the rich chocolate color whirling. The wind stung him, and the horrible smell the bird creature was giving off made his nose itch and his eyes water. It smelled nasty. 

Fifteen feet away, he could hear the soft prayers she mumbled to the Japanese gods. Her voice was so beautiful but tense as well. His eyes bled to red when he saw how hard the bird of paradise was gripping Kagome. Its claws had actually punctured her skin, causing her to bleed. The red liquid easily showed up on her white shirt. 

Ten feet away, the inu hanyou felt the down draft from the enemy demon's wings, which slowed his ascent. The nasty smell grew stronger, but he could also smell the miko. Her scent was soft and sweet, like cherry blossoms. 

Five feet away, Inuyasha could see Kagome strain even harder against the claws to try and reach him, obviously ignoring how she made her newly acquired wounds even worse. Her dainty hand flexed and then stretched out, her whole body tight and stiff as she tried to close the distance between them. 

Then, Inuyasha was within touching distance. He reached out his hand to her, his fingers brushing hers. Her skin felt soft and warm, but the sensation was fleeting. Before he could get close enough to grab her hand, he began to fall. He hadn't jumped high enough.

"Kagome!" he shouted as he fell back down to the earth, watching helplessly as the demon carried the miko away. "Kagome!"

"INUYASHA!" 

  


* * *

The black-haired woman grinned. "And here's where things should become interesting," she stated, shaking out her long locks as her dark eyes drifted over to the other two females.

"I hope you are right," the blonde replied, chewing lightly on her bottom lip.

"As do I," the silver-haired female added.

The first woman scoffed at them. "You two are being silly. You know that I'm never wrong when I predict what will happen in the future."

The blue-eyed one smiled softly. "I guess you are right about that." 

The pale-skinned woman went over to the reflecting pool and summoned up Inuyasha's image. "Let's watch and see." 

  


* * *

Inuyasha began to run after Kagome, but the remaining birds of paradise stopped him, dive bombing him and trying to rake his body with their claws. _ 'I can't believe I let her get kidnapped,'_ he snarled at himself, swinging his sword to cut a demon into thirds. _ 'I promised that I would protect her, and I failed.' _

Another demon came at him, but it quickly died as well._ 'She was depending on me, and I let her down,' _he thought darkly. _ 'I was supposed to keep her safe, to make sure she completed her quest.' _ He continued to berate himself as he killed the last few enemy demons. _ 'I know this is only a game, but if anything happens to Kagome...' _His thoughts drifted off before picking back up again. _ 'I don't want anything bad to happen to her. I want to save her, and that's exactly what I'm going to do.' _

Inuyasha glanced down at the hand that had almost grasped the miko's own soft hand. He had failed her, but most of all, he missed her. He wanted Kagome back at his side. _'I think I love her,' _he suddenly realized, golden eyes widening. He almost couldn't believe it because it sounded so strange. He was in love with Kagome, the same Kagome that had annoyed him just a few months ago; however, things had somehow changed, and he wasn't about to question why or how.

"Hang on, Kagome," he called out as he raced off in the direction he had last seen the demon headed in. "I'm coming." 

  


* * *

Kagome struggled as hard as she could, ignoring the pain to the best of her abilities. Because it was virtual reality, no extreme pain was allowed. That sensation was dulled to a certain extent. 

She kicked her legs and attempted to pry the claws from her shoulders. The nasty demon smell made her eyes water, but she kept on struggling. She wanted free. 

"Stop wiggling!" the demon ordered gruffly, his voice distinctly male. "You'll only hurt yourself more." 

"Put me down!" she shot back, tone angry. "Put me down right now!"

"Sorry, but I don't think so," he replied. "I'm taking you to Soku-no-Kumi."

The miko paled. Soku-no-Kumi was the Japanese hell, a horrible place that no one could ever escape from. Any player who dared enter there died and was forever exiled from the game. "You can't do that! What are you? Insane?!" He struggling drastically increased. There was no way she would allow anyone to take her to Soku-no-Kumi. 

The bird of paradise laughed, the sickening sound sending shivers down the female's spin. "Perhaps I am, but you were the one stupid enough to run out of arrows."

Kagome huffed, scowling. "I'm not stupid, you are!" she exclaimed. "And Inuyasha is going to kick your ass and then deep-fry it in oil!" She grasped one of the claws and pulled. "You're nothing but a wussy; you flew away from Inuyasha so quickly that I know you have no courage. I bet you're terrified of him!" She immediately found herself being violently shaken. 

"Shut up, bitch! You know nothing about me!" the demon shouted, tone laced with hatred and fury. 

The miko gasped in pain, the last bit of white on her shirt finally turning red from the blood. She bit her lip, trying to force her magic to hurt the demon. Of course, she failed.

"You are nothing but a chicken," Kagome declared with more bravery than she felt. "You can't even handle basic insults! What kind of a man can't take a demeaning, truthful statement from a woman?" 

"I said to shut up!" The bird of paradise growled ferociously at her, the sound dark and menacing. He wanted her to shut up, and he was going to have his way. While his quest was to deliver a miko to the entrance of Soku-no-Kumi, the fairy hadn't said the miko had to be living.

"Why don't you leave her alone!" someone shouted. 

Kagome felt something inside of her twist painfully, as if she didn't dare hope. Praying, she turned her head and saw Inuyasha running toward her, his sword drawn. Her brown eyes lit up, and her heart leapt with joy. He was going to save her!

"Inuyasha!" she cried out happily, smiling. _'I'm alright now! Inuyasha's here to save me!' _

"You again?" the bird of paradise snarled, sounding annoyed. He hated people that wouldn't leave him alone. 

"Let Kagome go!" the hanyou ordered, jumping into the air, heading straight toward his enemy. His red eyes revealed his fury as he advanced. As soon as he felt he was close enough, he swung his sword, aiming for the enemy's neck.

The enemy demon flew up higher, avoiding the attack. Fear filled him for the first time. The hanyou was a faster runner than he was flier, which was definitely a bad thing.

"Come down here and fight, you coward!" Inuyasha demanded, shaking his fist at the flying youkai. Of course, the enemy didn't pay him any attention.

The hanyou growled, sheathing his sword. He needed to move faster and be able to jump higher if he was going to rescue Kagome.

"Stupid hanyou," the bird of paradise replied tauntingly. He sneered at the smaller demon. "Do you honestly think I'm going to come down to your level?" He laughed. "I don't think so. Besides, I have a quest to complete. This little miko gets to visit Soku-no-Kumi."

_'C'mon, Inuyasha. I know you can beat this clown. You're so much stronger than him,'_ Kagome thought, silently praying to the Japanese gods._ 'Just please don't hurt me in the process.' _

While the evil demon had been talking, Inuyasha had jumped into a tree to gain some more height. He grinned, knowing that the flying youkai wouldn't be able to avoid him again. "I don't think so!" The inu youkai launched out of the tree, baring his fangs. "Sankon Tetsusou!" He aimed the attack carefully, making sure to avoid the helpless miko. The claw attack separated the human part of the creature from the bird part, causing the demon to disintegrate.

"Inuyasha!" Kagome shouted in fear as the demon above her turned to dust and she began to fall. She closed her eyes tightly, praying that the hanyou would be able to catch her.

With a soft oomph, she fell into someone's strong arms. "It's alright now, Kagome. I got you."

She opened her eyes, looking up to see Inuyasha. "You have no idea how happy I am to see you," she told him. He was her knight in shining armor, and she had never, ever, been so overjoyed to see anyone.

"I think I get the idea," he replied with a smile. Then he gently kissed her forehead. "Now, what are we going to do about your wounds?"

"I need to clean them and if there are some herbs nearby that I could use, that'd be even better," Kagome answered, looking around. 

Inuyasha began walking. "I can smell water. I'll take you to it," he stated. "As for the herbs, you'll either have to tell me what the look like so I can get them, or you're on your own." 

She nodded in understanding. "Alright." 

  


* * *

The blonde woman grinned. "Now that's just kinda sweet. He's taking care of her." She gazed down at the reflecting pool which showed Inuyasha helping Kagome as much as he could by carrying her and gathering the herbs she needed for a quick recovery. He even gave her his red haori overshirt to wear since her shirt had been ruined.

"See, I told you everything would be fine," the dark-skinned woman stated, crossing her arms. "You two worry too much." 

"Perhaps we do, but you tend to not worry enough," the silver-haired woman replied. "Luckily, Inuyasha is strong and more than capable of looking after the miko."

"How much farther do they have to go?" the blue-eyed female inquired, sitting down at the edge of the pool. "How far away is the Shikon no Tama?"

"Just a couple of hours," the black-haired woman answered. "But they have one last obstacle to overcome before they do--the dark territory." 

  


* * *

Kagome wrapped the red haori shirt around her body a little more tightly before she allowed Inuyasha to pick her back up. "I can walk, you know," she reminded him. "I didn't hurt my feet."

"You are still wounded," Inuyasha replied, beginning to walk. He didn't want to jar her wounds by running. "I don't need you to think you're all better already and hurt yourself all over again."

She sighed. "Alright." She paused. "Where are we though?" she inquired curiously, brown eyes focused on him. "I really didn't pay too much attention while the bird was carrying me.

"He carried you in the direction we were headed in, so we didn't lose time or anything," he stated. "The only thing that slightly slowed us down was the battle. I think we'll be able to make it to the palace by midmorning tomorrow if we go for about another hour tonight and then wake up early tomorrow." 

"That sounds great." Kagome smiled. Suddenly, her bright expression faded as a horrible feeling came over her. The air around her suddenly felt like death and darkness.

Inuyasha noticed the change in her. "What's wrong Kagome? Do you sense something?" 

She nodded her head. "Yes. Evil."

  


* * *

  


* * *

  


* * *

CotA: Sorry I took so long to update people, but I hope this chapter was worth it. And I think I explained everything thoroughly enough in this chapter. *crosses fingers* If I didn't, please tell me. 

Zebez: Yes, please do... and the review responses are below. 

Sess-chan: That was my line. *growls* 

Xio the Dog Demoness: Thanks. I'll do my best on the updating thing. 

Elen Liste Alda: Thank you for the compliment.

ArtemisMoon: *claps hands* Yea! You said I had a unique plot! I'm so happy. I've been working hard on this, so it's wonderful to hear that you enjoy my story. I've been working hard on Kagome and Inuyasha's relationship. It's been a difficult thing for me to develop, but I think I'm finally getting somewhere. And, yes, you're out of chappies. I do take pity on you, but I don't know how soon the next update will be. *shrugs* Sorry.

eruinichil: Why would Sesshoumaru hate his brother? They really don't even know each other, and they have no sword feud going on between them. They're more... indiferent towards each other. 

Purple Witchy Angel: Yes, I updated. And why did it take you a while to get into it? I'm curious. Maybe I could improve the first few chapters some. And I see nothing wrong with getting a new muse... even if he is a really hot half demon. *grins* He's from my story Cursed Blood, and I plan to keep him around for a while. Hopefully I'll get him settled in and used to my routine before Sigmund decides to return. 

kumiko-chan: *giggles* It's okay. I've gone for long stretches without realizing one of my favorite authors had updated.

Danielle: Cute, huh? Well, I think I'll take that as a compliment. 

inuyasha-girly-2007: Naraku may make an appearance; he may not. I'm not telling. And I'm trying to confuse people where the three women are concerned. Who they are won't be revealed until closer to the end. Sorry. But I like to keep people guessing. *giggles* And I hope you finally figured out what you were supposed to see that man about. 

ShadowHeart: Yes, this is it. This is one of my best stories, and I'm so proud of it. And I'm working on the battle scenes. They just aren't my thing. Fortunately, I usually become better with practice... lots of practice. *grins* And yes, more is on the way. 

Pline: I believe you reviewed this chapter only once. And thanks for all the compliments. 

Kim: No, Inuyasha didn't get run-through. And I don't believe the elves know Inuyasha is bad mouthing them. If they did know, they wouldn't care. Can you possibly imagine how many people insult them daily? They are the ones in charge.

erika: I will try to update soon. Promise. 

Monomo * Tsukino: Kikyou was already added. She was way back in chappie... two I believe. She was the shop keeper with the kick-butt awesome necklace that gave Kagome the advice about the bridge to Greece and the warning about Yura.

Lady Icykimi: It's okay. I know that I'm not perfect, and spelling errors are normal for me. I just have a habit of missing them when I read through a chappie. You can point them out to me if you want to. I won't mind. Really. And I'm glad you were excited about Sesshoumaru as I was. He's one of my favorite characters. 

Yanou: Ouch is right. And yes, the three women did know that Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha are related. They just wanted to throw a small kink in the works, so to speak.

Chibi Keiko: I'll try to put in a little more romance. Give me time. 

Bloody Angel X: I'm glad I impressed you so much. This story is doing much better than my last one, and I'm rather proud of it... which is probably why I keep working so hard on it. And I don't think Sesshoumaru is going to make another appearance. Actually, I don't think you'll get to see him again until the third story. *shrugs* Sorry.

power2thepink: Sorry about him being a little OOC, but he hasn't exactly grown up in the Sengoku Jidai, and he has a different life, so his personality would be a little different. Plus, he has no reason to hate Inuyasha. Does that explain the slight change in his attitude?

inuyasha kagome2: Yeah, that was kinda cute. I liked that scene too.

sashlea: They get along okay. They're not bitter enemies, but they're not best friends either. They really don't know too much about each other. And thanks for pointing out my error.

Kittymui: Quite a bit will be explained when I reveal who the three women are, I promise. 

Sakura onto Hitomi: *takes cookie and hugs Sakura-chan* Thanks! SUGAR! *eats the cookie* You have no idea how much I needed the sugar rush. So much stuff to do. *sighs* Oh well.

Knight Star: Why would they be mad? Sesshoumaru served his purpose.

drake220: No, I've never heard them called that, and no, I've never been to aff.net. And I think I catch your drift. And Sesshoumaru, Sango, and Miroku are all gone. You won't see Sango and Miroku until the next story.

Lady Rose Jade: Writer's block. I can certainly understand that. I have them often enough. 

Bikutoria: The ambition and drive? It's just plain lacking. As for babies... People meet online, go to the cafes in the real world, and if they hit it off, things go from there. And yes, that is the last you're going to see of Sesshoumaru for a while. He probably won't appear until the third story at the latest. He might be in the second story. I'm not quite sure.

Dragon Man 180: Why would Inuyasha brag to his family? He rarely ever talks to them. Perhaps I didn't make that point all that clear in my story. *sighs* I hate it when I do that.

SilentSlayer: That would be cute, but I'm not sure if Inuyasha would do that. Then again... I maybe he would. He does have that unpredictable streak in him.

Samurai Amaya: I "have to" update, huh? *laughs* It sounds like you're interested. That must mean I'm doing something right. *smiles* And you'll find out who the three women are soon enough. 

Something...: Long is right, but the thought-out, I don't know. And I will continue this.


	8. Chapter 8

Virtual Reality

Chapter Eight

Kagome stared at her surroundings, unable to actually see anything wrong with the area; however, her sixth sense was going nuts. The evil she felt was more powerful than anything she had ever sensed before. It was so intense, so strong, that she almost couldn't believe it. It was suffocating; she nearly choked on the sensation. _'I hope I don't become sick.' _

"It just feels so evil," she stated softly, brown eyes troubled. "I have never felt anything so evil as this place. I think this is what Soku-no-Kumi just might feel like."

Inuyasha growled, even though he couldn't smell, see, or hear anything threatening or slightly evil. "I bet the Elves have something to do with this. They're trying to stop us from completing your quest," he stated, tone angry. He hated how the Elves kept twisting things around to Kagome's disadvantage._ 'They are all so dead when I finally get to see them. Oh so very dead.' _"But I have a news flash for them--we are NOT going to fail!"

The miko smiled up at him, suddenly feeling much better. It was nice to know she had his support; she also liked his optimism. _'I don't know what I would do without him,' _she thought, her eyes holding a soft look just for him. "You're right. Thank you." A determined gleam entered her brown eyes, intensifying the chocolate color. "Now, let's go show them up!"

The hanyou grinned, finding her happy enthusiasm rather catching. "Good idea." He resumed walking, his grip on the female gentle but firm. Of course, he kept his eyes, ears, and nose open for any sign of danger, even though he continued to sense nothing. His nose didn't pick up the scent of any demon; his ears heard nothing unusual; his eyes saw nothing evil or dangerous. Everything seemed just fine to him, but he trusted Kagome. If she said the area was evil, he would believe it.

Inuyasha continued to travel until he came across a wide, gray path. He wasn't quite sure what it was, but it had yellow and white lines running parallel down the edges and middle. He could smell something funny in the air, and his ears picked up distant rumbling, like soft thunder.

"What is this?" Kagome wondered, staring at the gray object in awe. It was so long that she couldn't see the beginning or end of it. "What could it possibly be for?"_ 'I've never seen anything like it. It has to be at least a hundred feet wide and a couple of miles long.' _

The dog demon looked around, his golden eyes unsure as they took in everything. "I don't know. Maybe it's an illusion." That seemed likely to him, but he couldn't tell if it was the truth or not. The road looked real. Also, something inside of him kept saying that the gray road was real, whether he liked that option or not.

She shrugged slightly. "It appears harmless, although if it was dangerous, I wouldn't be able to tell. There's so much evil around her that I can't single anything out." She sighed sadly. _'I wish I could be more help. I wish I had better powers.' _"Should we cross it? Or see if we can go around?"

Inuyasha took a few deep breaths, calming down as he mused over their options. _'We could go around, but that we take far too long. We simply don't have time because of Kagome's quest, but... crossing the road could be dangerous. Do we dare risk it? Do I dare risk Kagome's life? Then again, if she fails her quest, would her life be forfeit anyway?' _He eventually came to a decision, hoping that it was the right one. "I think it's safe to cross. Besides, this is the quickest way to the palace." He stepped toward the path, golden eyes alert.

A hanyou suddenly appeared in front of him, his red face one of a monkey. His body was white fur, the hair somewhat long and coarse, covering his feet but leaving his evil-looking nails free. It looked like a cheap costume. The dog demon instantly took a disliking to the newcomer, mainly because costumed-man smelled bad.

"Who are you?" the inu youkai demanded to know, automatically tightening his grip on the miko in a protective gesture. He was not going to let anything bad happen to her ever again. _'The instant he makes a move to harm Kagome, I'll kill him.' _

"Naraku," the monkey-dressed male replied, his voice even sounding evil. "And you have entered my territory." He laughed, the sound sickening and dark.

Kagome made a face as she felt her insides squirm. The man made her feel sick, his evil miasma flowing out of him and curling around her like slimy tentacles. She called up her magic to force the evil miasma away, and she succeeded. It was hard, but she did it. The only thing was that the awful tentacles left her with a great desire to take a long, hot shower with lots of anti-bacterial soap.

Inuyasha couldn't see it; in fact, he appeared to be immune to it. The miasma avoided him, moving around him as if it knew the inu youkai would be a bad target. Also, every time the miasma touched him, it would begin to smoke.

Unfortunately for her, she could see, smell, and sense it, which didn't bode well for her. The black miasma seemed to be a concentration of pure evil. She couldn't feel any good inside of it or Naraku._ 'It doesn't seem possible, but I think he is completely evil. How can that be though? Doesn't everyone have some good in them?' _After another look at the newcomer, she mentally shook her head. _'I guess not. I can't sense a single speck of kindness or compassion inside of him.' _

"We just going to the Japanese Palace, so move out of our way if you don't want to get hurt," Inuyasha advised, his voice slipping into a growl. There was just something about the hanyou that ticked him off.

Naraku chuckled, slightly tilting his head to one side. "Don't be in such a rush. I merely wish to play with you for a while." He gestured toward the gray path behind him. "I don't suppose you know anything about an old game called 'Frogger', do you?" Before Inuyasha could answer, he continued on to explain a few things. "It was a game in which a little frog tried to cross a rather busy highway, dodging traffic and such to get to the other side. This is what you are going to do. You're going to play human frogger"

"I don't know what you think you're doing, but I don't think this is allowed!" the inu youkai snapped. _'This sounds illegal to me. No one should be able to control his territory this much. He actually changed it to something more modern, adding in something that cannot exist here. I hope he gets his ass kicked by the Elves for messing around like he is.' _"And we don't have time to deal with you!"

The monkey-dressed male shrugged. "That is none of my concern. What you should be worrying about is the road... not your time limit." He began to walk away. "Good luck getting across. I can't wait to see you flattened like a pancake. This is going to be so entertaining, don't you agree?"

The dog demon set Kagome down and launched himself at the other man. "Sankon Tetsusou!" With a slash of his claws, he sent an empty monkey costume fluttering to the ground in shreds. Naraku had disappeared.

"How did he do that?" the miko wondered, walking up to inspect the white cloth. "How did he just disappear?" It didn't make sense to her. Of course, a modern road in the middle of ancient Japan didn't make sense to her either. Considering that Naraku was probably a hacker, she figured that anything was possible.

Inuyasha scowled. "I don't know, but I do know that he ran like a little baby!" He growled, kicking at the costume. _'Annoying coward. Can't even stick around to fight for even a second.' _

"So... what do we do now?" Kagome inquired, her eyes focused on her friend and ally. "Do we try to cross the highway, like Naraku wants? We could try to go around it."

The silver-haired man shook his head. "We don't have time to do that. With the time limit so short, we'll have to beat Naraku's little 'game.'" He picked the miko back up. "Let's go."

* * *

The silver-haired woman sighed softly. "This does not bode well for them. Naraku is a skilled hacker... with far more powers than he should have." 

The dark-skinned woman shrugged. "Big deal. They'll either defeat him or end up dead. Either way, we'll most likely achieve our objective."

The blonde frowned. "I don't know. This hacker is too dangerous. He bends and breaks so many rules, but nothing can really be done about him. He always seems to escape any punishment."

"He must know things about this game that even we don't," the pale female stated. "And it's obvious that something needs to be done about him. He kills every player who enters his domain--not a good thing."

The black-haired woman grinned. "Kagome and Inuyasha will be just fine. They'll win any 'games' he throws at him, and in the end, they'll defeat him. Trust me... I know."

"I really do hope you're right." Blue eyes troubled, the blonde went to the reflecting pool and began to watch the miko and hanyou approach the treacherous highway.

* * *

"It seems almost too easy at the moment," Kagome commented, brown eyes anxious. "He said we were supposed to dodge cars and such, but there's nothing here." She nervously bit her lower lip. _'This is looking really bad. The feeling I'm getting from this is most definitely not good.' _

"Maybe he screwed up or something," Inuyasha suggested. "Considering what a big, stupid baby he is, he probably forgot to add in the cars." He shrugged slightly, his expression slightly arrogant. "There's only one way to find out." Every cell alert, he took a step onto the gray highway.

Instantly, cars, trucks, minivans, and semis of all types began roaring by, a few nearly running Inuyasha and Kagome over. He barely jumped back in time, eyes wide with surprise. As soon as he was a foot away from the road, all the vehicles disappeared.

"I nearly got ran over by my favorite Ferrari--a convertible one," the hanyou stated, blinking a few times in shock. He had only seen pictures of cars, mainly because people didn't really own cars anymore. They still existed, of course, but they just weren't needed anymore. After all, a person could go anywhere and see anything while in virtual reality.

"It was a lovely silver color, just like your hair," Kagome replied, a small smile on her face as she tried to adjust to the surprise of almost being run over by a non-existent car. "So... we try again?"

He nodded. "I'm going to have to run fast. Get ready." He tightened his grip on the miko and then made a dash across the road.

Inuyasha noticed a blur of red and dodged to the right, barely avoiding being hit by a large truck. Then, he jumped over a tiny black sports car.

"INUYASHA!" Kagome screamed. A giant semi was heading right for them, and since he was still in midair, they couldn't dodge. She could see the fading sunlight reflect off the metal girl into her eyes, and the purple metallic chrome coloring would have been pretty if her mind hadn't kept forming a picture of her splattered against the lovely paint job.

"Shit!" he cursed, turning so that his feet were towards the approaching vehicle. _'Please let this work.' _He came in contact with the semi, bending his knees to absorb most of the impact. Then, he launched off the eighteen-wheeler, aiming for the edge of the highway.

"Crap!" Inuyasha swore again as they nearly hit a blue and black diesel truck.

Kagome held her breath as Inuyasha bounced off the top of the truck and went flying. The hanyou landed on his feet, still carrying the miko, and began dodging vehicles once again. Everything was going so fast that the female could only make out blurs of color.

_ 'Red. Blue. Black. Red. Green. White. Red. Red. Black. Purple.' _She shook her head, a small ache forming in her temples. Staring so hard at the blurs made her eyes hurt.

Inuyasha suddenly leapt into the air, jumping off of a semi and going flying through the air. They landed on the grass and went rolling, Kagome ending up on top of Inuyasha. Her face was an inch away from his, their noses almost touching. Her arms were on either side of his shoulders, her chest resting on his. The remainder of her body was sprawled out to the side.

Both blushed and Kagome quickly pushed herself off of the hanyou. "Sorry," she mumbled, feeling rather embarrassed. "And thank you for getting me across that."

"No problem." He sat up and looked back at the highway. It was completely empty; not one car or truck drove down it.

"How'd they all just disappear?" she wondered out loud.

The hanyou shrugged. "I don't know, but I do know that I hate Naraku," he responded gruffly. "Fucking bastard, trying to get us killed."

"Let's just get going," Kagome suggested, standing up. Her wounds only slightly ached from the rolling around and the strain she had put on them. "Or we could break for the night and tackle everything in the morning when we're rested." She wasn't quite tired yet, but she didn't know about the inu youkai.

"I would rather finish this tonight. Who knows, maybe the Elves gave Naraku the quest of keeping you from completing your quest," he replied. "I don't want to give him time to think up more cruel things to do to us."

"Good idea," she agreed. "Although, I don't believe he'd be able to think of anything worse than what we just went through."

"Human frogger." He snorted. "How sick is that?"

"Very sick," Kagome responded as Inuyasha stood, dusting himself off._ 'He has a cute butt.' _She immediately blushed, realizing just what she had thought.

Inuyasha looked around, but he didn't see anything dangerous or even slightly unusual... well, besides the miko's blush, which he ignored. "We need to hurry, so do you want to ride on my back or do you want me to carry you? It's your choice."

"I'll ride on your back," she replied. _'He won't be able to see my blush then.' _

"Okay then. Get on." He knelt down in front of the miko, allowing her to climb on and wrap her arms around his shoulders. "Ready?"

Kagome nodded. "Yeah," she answered. "Let's go."

* * *

The blonde gave a small sigh of relief. "I honestly thought they were going to become flat, little pancakes," she stated, her eyes on the reflecting pool.

"But they survived," the black-haired female replied. "Told you." She grinned. "I'm never wrong."

"Yes, that's true, but you can only predict things correctly to a certain extent," the silver-haired woman reminded her, tone soft.

"Urd, you are really depressing sometimes," the dark-skinned woman grumbled. She hated being reminded of her limitations or shortcomings.

"But I speak the truth, do I not?" Urd inquired, voice calm.

The dark-eyed woman frowned. "Yes, but you're still depressing," she insisted.

"Now, don't you two get into a fight," the blonde stated, blue eyes flickering back and forth between the other two. "Your time would be better spent watching over Kagome and Inuyasha or planning out our next activity."

Urd nodded. "You are correct about that. I will watch over the two players."

"I'll do the planning," the black-haired woman volunteered, rubbing her hands together eagerly. "In fact, I think I'll go do that now." Grinning, she walked off, eyes sparkling with anticipation and mischievousness.

The blue-eyed girl sighed. "There are days I worry about her," she said, and then she went back to watching the image of Kagome and Inuyasha in the reflecting pool.

* * *

Inuyasha kept on running at top speed, making everything whiz by them and become nothing but blurs. He did keep his senses on high alert, but he didn't see, hear, or smell anything dangerous, so he kept his worry level to a minimum. 

Kagome, on the other hand, become more and more worried. As they approached the castle, the feeling of evil and darkness only increased. Everywhere she looked, she could see black blurs that were Naraku's miasma, things that reached for her but couldn't touch her because of how fast the hanyou was running.

"There's the palace," Inuyasha announced, although he didn't sound to sure of himself. The palace didn't look anything like it was supposed it.

While it should have been beautiful, with plenty of glorious landscaping,, a dark palace with bone decorations on the outside walls stood there. The only reason the miko and hanyou could tell it was the palace was because the basic structure of it had remained the same. It still appeared Japanese in style, but it had many evil-looking additions. Tombstones decorated the front yard as well as bones. The ground was bare of any life. Any trees on the property were dead.

"Naraku must have made this his home base," the raven-haired girl stated, a look of anxiety in her eyes. The sight of the renovated palace unnerved her a bit, but there was nothing she could do about that._ 'At least Inuyasha is here with me. If I didn't have him beside me, I'd probably freak out. This place is down right creepy.' _She mentally shivered.

Inuyasha set Kagome down right outside the front door. "Once we get inside, I want you to stay behind me and out of sight."

"Why?" She didn't like the look on his face. It worried her more than the sight of the palace did.

"I smell demon."

* * *

"How many players does Naraku have working for him?" the blonde wondered, chewing on her bottom lip. "I know we wanted to challenge Kagome and Inuyasha; we didn't want to kill them." 

"I don't know how much help the hacker has, but he has at least three or four. Two are not in the vicinity, which will be a boon to the two," the silver-haired girl replied. "I believe they will be alright though. After all they have faced, they are ready for almost anything Naraku might throw at them."

"I noticed that you said _almost anything_," the blue-eyed woman stated. "That's not good."

"I am not our sister. I cannot predict what is going to happen like her," the second female responded. "But, I do have faith in Kagome and Inuyasha. They will survive this obstacle and go onto the next. The only question is, will Kagome pass the final test?"

* * *

Kagome blinked. "What kind of demon? How powerful is it?" she asked, glancing at the wooden front door.

"I don't know what kind, but it is powerful. It's not as powerful as Ryuukossei, but it's not weak either. I'll be able to take care of it, but you'll have to stay out of the way," Inuyasha answered. "I don't want anything to happen to you, so promise to stay out of trouble."

She laughed but nodded her head. "I promise to do my best."

"Good." He gently kissed her on the lips, quickly pulling away. "Let's go." He opened the door, glanced back at the miko to make she was following, and walked inside.

Kagome stayed on the hanyou's heels, brown eyes wide with surprise. _'He kissed me,' _she thought. _'He kissed me.' _She blinked, still in a state of shock. _'His lips were so soft, and he was so gentle...' _She smiled. _'I want to kiss him again so... I'll give him a kiss as soon as we're out of danger.' _

Inuyasha pointed at a corner of the room that was shrouded in shadows. "Hide there. The demon's coming."

"I'm already here," an evil voice stated as a tall, ugly demon stepped out of the shadows. "Get ready to die, because I'm going to kill you."

The hanyou laughed. "I don't think so." In one smooth move, he drew his sword, watching it transform into a gleaming fang. "You're the on that's going to die!" He launched at the enemy as Kagome hid in the corner, watching everything as best as she could. It was hard to keep her eyes on the two combatants as they ran around the room, dodging through shadows and behind pillars.

Amazingly enough, the demon turned out to be fast, something that annoyed Inuyasha to no end. He could barely keep up. "Hold still!" he demanded, swinging his sword at the enemy's throat.

"What? Are you having trouble keeping up? Are you too slow to keep up with Goshinki?" he taunted darkly, an evil smile creeping onto his face that bared his sharp, dangerous-looking teeth for all to see.

_ 'This is stupid. I'll just use the Kaze no Kizu and kill him that way. He won't be able to dodge that,' _Inuyasha thought smugly. _'He won't even be able to see it coming.' _"Prepare to die!" he shouted as he readied himself to use his attack.

"I won't let you use the Kaze no Kizu on me," Goshinki stated, grabbing a hold of the Tetsusaiga and wrenching it out of the dog demon's grasp.

"Shit!" the hanyou cursed, more colorful words coming out of his mouth. "Give me back my sword!" He lunged at the enemy, but he wasn't quite fast enough.

"Go get it." The ugly youkai threw the rusty-looking sword across the room into the shadows. To get to the sword, Inuyasha would have to go through his enemy.

"Fine then. I'll just have to resort to something else," the inu youkai growled, tone dark and menacing.

Kagome watched Inuyasha's eyes turn blood red as his face changed. His nails grew longer and more deadly-looking. Something about him disturbed her, but she wasn't frightened. The changed Inuyasha just felt unstable and chancy to her. She knew that he wouldn't hurt her, but she didn't know what he would do exactly, and that was what worried her.

"Be careful, Inuyasha," she whispered, licking her dry lips.

"Sorry, but your lover-boy is going to die today, no matter what he looks like," Goshinki stated.

The silver-haired hanyou cracked his knuckles. "Let's get down to business." With a dark smile on his face, he ran at his opponent, nails positioned for a strike.

Goshinki didn't even see it coming. He could only partly dodge the blow, ending up with an arm cut off instead of missing his heart like the hanyou had intended. "I can't read your mind anymore," he said, sounding surprised. "Why not?"

"In this form, I'm stronger," Inuyasha replied. "And no one can touch my mind. So, say good-bye." With a loud roar, he sliced off Goshinki's head, sending it rolling.

Within moments, the head and body turned to dust and then vanished, leaving nothing behind.

Kagome walked up to Inuyasha, her expression unsure. "Inuyasha? You okay?"

He nodded. "Yeah, just help me find my sword."

"Okay." She immediately began searching for it, finding it in a far corner covered in cobwebs that it had gathered when flying through the air.

Smiling, she took it too her friend and secret love. "I found it!" she declared happily, giving it to him.

The instant Inuyasha laid a hand on the blade, he returned to normal. "I don't like changing," he told her. "It shortens the life span of my character. If I use it too much, my heart will give out and I'll 'die.'"

"Then why'd you use it?" Kagome inquired, curious. "I'm sure that if you had tried you could have retrieved your sword."

He shook his head. "Maybe, but what good would it have done me? Goshinki could read my mind. I needed to use my full demon form if only to keep him from doing that."

_ 'He does have a point there,' _she thought. "I understand now. You know that the form has it's uses, but you don't like using it because it's dangerous to your heath."

"Pretty much." He sheathed his sword. "So, are you okay? Were you hurt?"

"No," Kagome replied instantly. "You kept Goshinki far too busy for him to even approach me. Thank you." She hugged him, quickly pressing her lips to his before backing away from embarrassment, her face bright red.

_ 'She can be so cute sometimes,'_ Inuyasha thought, smiling._ 'So very cute.' _He caressed the side of her face with one hand and then began looking around. "So... where do we go from here? Where's the statue?"

The miko blinked. "I can sense something strange. It's not evil. I just now noticed it," she informed him. "I guess I was too busy paying attention to the fight to notice anything that wouldn't hurt me."

"Could it be the Shikon no Tama?" he wondered out loud, tone curious as he kept his senses on full alert. After dealing with Goshinki, he wasn't going to take any chances. Kagome's life, or character's life, was much too important to him for that.

"I don't know. Maybe." She shrugged. "It'd be nice if it was." _'If I can sense the Shikon, why now? Why couldn't I sense it earlier?' _She mentally sighed. Things were so confusing.

"Maybe the Elves finally got my message and decided to make up for all the crap they've put you through," Inuyasha suggested. _'I sure hope so, otherwise I will kill them. If they did decide to make up for everything, I'll only kick their asses from here to Soku-no-Kumi.'_

Kagome looked around. "I think it's this way." She pointed down a dark hallway. Along both walls there was only one window, and it had been boarded up. Needless to say, it looked spooky.

"Alright. I'll walk beside you to keep you safe," he replied sincerely. "I'm not going to let anything happen to you."

She smiled up at him, love shining in her eyes. "Thank you, Inuyasha. I appreciate it more than I can ever say."

So, side by side, the two walked down the hall, both tense and alert. Neither wanted to end up dead, not when they were so close to completing the quest.

The wooden floorboards creaked with every step they took, sounding as if they'd break any second. Strange noises came from inside the walls, sounding as if small monsters were trapped inside. Considering what they knew of Naraku, they didn't put it past him. He probably had encased tiny creatures inside the walls, just for his own sick and twisted pleasure.

"That way," Kagome whispered as she gestured towards a black door that was slightly ajar. "Whatever I sense is inside that room." She bit her bottom lip. "I also sense a lot of evil inside there. I think it's Naraku."

Inuyasha grinned. "He's so going down. We'll take him by surprise." Being as quiet as possible, he went to the door peaking through the crack. What he saw wasn't what he expected.

"Oh shit."

* * *

CotA: Hey minna-san. Sorry it took me so long to update. I've been rather busy, and on top of that, I've been lazy. Not good, to say the least. The good news is here's the next chapter. I finally got it done, which I am so happy about. And the idea about human frogger? That wasn't mine.

Zebez: That was RL Cassie's. She got the idea while watching some really stupid people run across a busy street and nearly get hit.

CotA: Right. And I'm sorry the chapter was a little shorter than usual. I tried to make it my normal 5,000 words, but I came up about 430 short. ::shrugs:: Oh well. I'm so tired right now that I don't care. It's too early to be doing this. ::yawns:: Well, I hope you enjoyed the chapter.

Sess-chan: Yes, and reviews would be good, especially since I worked so hard on this chapter.

CotA: ::raises an eyebrow:: You worked so hard? You? As I recall, I was the one doing all the typing.

Sess-chan: But I was the one who gave you most of the inspiration for this chapter. I suggest you give me the credit I am due.

CotA: ::frowns:: I don't think so. ::looks at Zebez and Kali:: If you'll excuse me, I have some things to discuss with Sess-chan for a few minutes. ::shoves Sess-chan out the door::

Kali: _'This promises to be interesting.' ::_follows::

Zebez: Right. I guess I'm the only one left. ::shrugs:: The review responses are below. ::hears a dog yelp outside the room:: And if you'll excuse me as well, I want to go watch this discussion. runs off

Sakura onto Hitomi: ::accepts the cookies:: Yea! Sugar, sugar, sugar, sugar... ::eats a cookie:: Sooo good. Thank you! ::hugs Sakura-chan::

inuyasha-girly-2007: I'm sorry, but I take forever to write a chapter. And I will try to update soon.

Kittymui: Thank you for your support. ::hugs Kitty-chan:: I'll try not to keep you waiting too long.

Yanou: The women aren't exactly evil. They have their reasons for doing what they're doing. You'll understand better when you learn who they are.

Makoto Lita: You don't have to mention me, but thanks. I appreciate it. ::hugs Makoto:: And I'll try to write more.

ArtemisMoon: I can kinda picture the three women as fangirls too, but I'm not gonna give away who they are and what they're planning. It's a surprise. ::grins evilly::

kitsunes-girl370: Good for you! I don't update as often as I should, but maybe that's because I got some stupid writer's block. ::takes a hammer to the writer's block and pounds away:: And nothing I'm doing is working. Oh, and if you want me to beta read anything, just send it to me.

Bikutoria: Geez, you're good. The dark territory is more than one obstacle rolled into one neat little package.

inuyasha kagome2: Yes, stupid annoying fairies. I don't care for them too much either. shrugs But they're kinda important, mainly because they relay messages.

eruinichil: I'm not gonna tell who they're for or why they're doing anything. You'll learn eventually.

Raining Fire: yes, fluff. I tried to put a little bit of it in there.

Kim: I will update soon.

Lady Icykimi: There's no reason to be sorry. I accept most critism with open arms. As long as you don't royally flame my story, I'm okay. Yea! I finally wrote a chappie with no errors! Note: I also read through it a few times to make sure of that. And your doggie had puppies? How kawaii!!! I love puppies! And I'm glad you like my uniquiness. It took me a while to come up with this fic. And I love SessKag too. They're one of my favorite couples. I also like Kouga/Kagome. I'm not sure why. I just do.

Footballchik21: You're supposed to be confused about what the three women are up to. It's a secret.

Evilfire4321: I will try to update faster, but I can't promise anything.

SilentSlayer: I'm not telling who the three women are. And as for Naraku... I think this answered your question.

Knight Star: I'll try to update soon.

Pline: Yes, Sango and Miroku will be in the sequel. So far, I figure that the sequel will be about six or seven chapters long.

BlackFireRose: Yes, I'll email you when I update. I believe you're already on my emailing list. And please be patient with me. I know that I take forever to update, and I am sorry. I tend to get writer's blocks quite often in stories.

Dragon Man 180: Castrated with a dull spoon? Ah... right. Okay. I feel rather sorry for them now. And There's a reason why everything's happening to Kagome. You'll find out what it is before the story ends.

kayla: Thanks. Athough a virtual reality story can be realistic, I don't know. ::grins::

Sakura Fujimia: Yea! An A for creativity. smiles Thanks for the support. I appreciate it.

Princess Anubus: I don't think you'll die of waiting. I have yet to do that, and I've waited for updates on some stories for months. ::shrugs:: But I'll try to update soon, just in case.

Crispy Muffin: Progressing fast? I could have sworn that it was going slow. ::shrugs:: Oh well. And maybe I can help you a little on your story. I'd be more than happy to help you through a writer's block if I can. Really. I know what it's like. ::curses at her current writer's block::

jdls: Thank you. ::grins:: I love the fact that you're so pleased with it. And who the three women are is a secret. Oh, btw, do you speak French? I'm just curious.

Linear: Thanks, and I'll try to update soon.

rina: Thank you. ::smiles:: I appreciate your enthusiasm.

Soup: Thanks. ::grins:: I worked hard on that to help build... ah... I forgot the word. ::sweatdrops:: Oh yeah! Suspense!

mmmooonnnkkkeeeyyy: I will try to update soon.

PWA: I've read a little bit of Fruits Basket. Isn't Kyo-kun the cat? Or is he the rat? I can't remember.

Animefan2003: Thanks... although I believe you would have a problem going "medieval on my ass." You will probably never be able to find me. ::grins:: But the best of luck to you.

AJaKe: Thank you. I'm trying hard to do something a little different from everyone else.

x-bandet-x: I'll try to update as soon as I can. Really, I will. Promise.


	9. Chapter 9

Virtual Reality

Chapter Nine

"What the fuck is up with this?" Inuyasha quietly cursed as he stared into the room through the slightly ajar door. _'I don't like the looks of this. The fight is going to be hell, and that's if everything goes my way. Oh well. I've always enjoyed a challenge, and this will most definitely be a challenge.' _

"What is it?" Kagome whispered, trying to see what he was looking at. His body was blocking the way, keeping her from seeing into the room. 'Is something wrong?' she wondered, frowning. _'Could Naraku have an army in there? Are the Elves inside the room?' _She nervously chewed on her lower lip. _'What is going on? What surprised him?' _Her mind kept bringing up more ideas, none of which offered her any peace or comfort.

"Kagome, I want you to stay out here where it's safe... ah, safer," the hanyou ordered. _'I don't want to see her die, even if this is only a game. She's far too precious to me.' _"I'm going to fight that... thing. Don't come in until I tell you its okay."

She nodded her head in understanding, chocolate brown eye filled with anxiety. "Alright," she replied. "But be careful." _'Please, Kami, don't let anything bad happen to him. I don't care if this is a game or not--I love him and I don't want him to die... ever.' _

"I will," Inuyasha promised, tone soft and sincere. Then, he drew his sword, watching it transform. "Now, stay out of sight." He kicked the door completely open and went charging into the room.

Kagome gasped, one hand flying up to cover her gaping mouth as her eyes widened drastically in shock. _'Oh my... I've never seen anything like that. It looks so unnatural, and there's so much evil.' _

Inuyasha's opponent was Naraku, but the monkey-man didn't look the same as before. Ugly dark green tentacles that greatly resembled vines snaked out from under the white-fur outfit, covering a large portion of the room. They moved like snakes, twisting and moving chaotically. Black miasma swirled through the room, darkening the air.

The miko nearly choked on the evil substance that she breathed in, and she was outside the room. She couldn't even imagine what the inside of the room felt like, and she didn't want to find out. To clear out her air passages, she backed away, her eyes still on the battle.

Inuyasha growled as he tried to attack Naraku, but tentacles kept getting in his way, moving faster than he could. He cut deep into one green vine, watching yellow-green pus-like blood come oozing out. Of course, a half second later, the wound was gone, completely healed. Then, he chopped a tentacle in half, but it re-grew as well. No wound he inflicted did any good. No matter how many times he attacked, Naraku would simply heal himself. All his efforts were worthless, but the worst part was that the monkey-man was faster than him.

'Does the fucking bastard not know how to fight?' he wondered as he slashed off yet another tentacle. He watched the pieces hit the ground, still wriggling like disgusting worms. He wanted to use the Kaze no Kizu, but he didn't ever have enough time. With so many tentacles to dodge, he could never even position himself for a shot. _'Damn you to hell, Naraku.' _

"Kukukukukuku," Naraku laughed, obviously enjoying himself. "Is the little puppy having problems?" He chuckled as the dog demon dodged more tentacles, swinging his sword at anything and everything that came too close. "It seems that you have gotten yourself in over your head."

"Don't you ever just shut up and fight?" Inuyasha demanded, tone laced with annoyance. "And don't you know how to hold still?!" He sliced two more tentacles into pieces, making a face at the putrid smell. The funny-colored blood smelled awful.

"Am I making things too difficult for you?" the hacker taunted, sounding smug. "Perhaps I gave myself too much power."

"Or perhaps you gave yourself too much ego!" the silver-haired hanyou retorted, growling. _'I really, really want to shut his mouth,' _he thought angrily.

Naraku simply laughed. "You are such an idiot," he said, tone amused. "And it's because of you the little miko is going to die. Although, perhaps I should keep her around as a pet. I could do it--trap her inside the game for as long as I want." He briefly paused as Inuyasha grew more furious. "Yes, I think I will. It will be my reward to myself for defeating you."

"Shut up!" Inuyasha ordered, his eyes becoming a reddish-gold color. "You're not going to touch Kagome, and you're not going to defeat me, so you can just shove it!"

The monkey-man shrugged, not even slightly bothered by how many wounds the inu hanyou was inflicting on him. Pain meant nothing to him, as did how dangerous the dog demon looked. Neither mattered at all, mainly because neither was a threat. He could heal, so pain was momentary, and Inuyasha was simply an opponent that would soon be dead, nothing more.

The dog demon jumped over a tentacle, ramming his sword down into it, growling ferociously. He absolutely hated Naraku with a passion. No one threatened Kagome around him... no one.

"Perhaps I should tell you why I'm destroying this game world piece by piece and making it my own," Naraku stated, voice neutral.

"Let me guess, you're doing it because you're some kind of deranged psycho?" Inuyasha replied, snarling when one of Naraku's vine's slammed into his back.

"Not quite, but close." The hacker crossed his arms. "About five years ago, I first joined this game. I expected so much out of it, but soon some other players grew angry with me. Maybe it was because I stole all their money and weapons, or maybe it was because I stalked this lovely shopkeeper named Kikyou for a while." He shrugged, watching the inu hanyou dodge more tentacles. The entire floor of the room was covered in a thin film of yellow-green blood. "It was Kikyou's husband who first attacked me, threatening me to stay away and clean up my act. Others followed in his example."

"Obviously because you're a sick bastard!" the dog demon snapped impatiently.

Naraku tsked at him, the sound comical. "It's not polite to interrupted." He sent ten of the tentacles at Inuyasha at once, laughing as the silver-haired demon dodged, rolled, and jumped to get out of their way. A few hit home, sending red blood to mix with the yellow-green liquid on the floor.

Inuyasha held a hand over a shallow stomach wound as he kept his eyes on his enemy, trying to predict what the next attack would be. _'He's so fast, dammit.' _

"Now, where was I?" the hacker wondered, still attacking the dog demon with his vine-like tentacles. "Ah yes. So many people attacked me, threatening me. I didn't expect such a huge reaction to my actions, so I wasn't prepared. After getting tortured quite a few times, I retaliated."

"Let me guess, you began hacking so you could kill them all off, right?" the inu hanyou inquired gruffly, rolling under a tentacle, gritting his teeth to fight back the pain his movements caused.

"Shut up and let me tell my story, unless you want me to kill you now?" Naraku snapped, sounding annoyed. When Inuyasha said nothing, merely sliced through a few attacking tentacles, he grinned. "Now that I think of it, Kagome looks so much like Kikyou. Getting your little miko will be just like getting Kikyou, don't you think?" He laughed insanely.

'This guy is a complete psycho,' Inuyasha thought in disgust. "You will not get Kagome, so don't you even think about it!" he shouted passionately, growling a moment later.

"That is where you are wrong, little puppy dog. Kagome will be mine, whether you like it or not," the hacker replied firmly, sounding completely sure of himself. No one was going to beat him, mainly because no one could.

Kagome shivered slightly, not liking the topic of their conversation one bit. _'Inuyasha, please beat him. I don't want Naraku to even slightly think that he has any claim on me.' _Nervously licking her lips, she allowed her gaze to wander around the room. _'Now where is that thing I sense? I know it's good, but where is it?' _

"Pay attention, Inuyasha. My story becomes more interesting here," Naraku stated. "Now, after being attacked so many times, I retaliated by stealing more of their things. I even figured out a way to steal their heath. Needless to say, I was the best thief ever to wander around this game." He chuckled obviously proud of his dark accomplishment. "Unfortunately, my skills were not appreciated, and when someone trapped me inside a house and set it aflame, the Elves did not allow me to come back. They banished me from the game for all eternity, saying that I could never take my revenge."

"Sounds like you got just what you deserved, bastard!" Inuyasha snapped, spearing one of the tentacles on his sword. _'If he was banished, then he must have hacked his way back into the game. How though? This game is supposed to be impossible to break into.' _

The hacker scowled. "That's enough crap from the peanut gallery." He attacked the inu hanyou swiftly, using one of his tentacles to slam the dog demon into a wall. When the silver-haired youkai sank to the ground, he left an imprint of his body on the wall.

"Ow," he groaned softly, golden eyes slightly unfocused. _'I'm feeling more pain than I should. What has Naraku done to this territory?' _he silently wondered. His whole body ached, and the sensation didn't dull at all, no matter how much time passed. It seemed that the hacker had twisted and broken most of the rules and limitations that the Elves had created for the game.

"Inuyasha," Kagome whispered, worry coursing through her. _'Oh my dear gods and goddess. Inuyasha can't win this fight alone. He needs help,' _she thought. _'Now, what can I do? I lost my arrows sometime while we were traveling, and my powers don't really work on demons. I have to do something though.' _

Expression one of determination, she barged into the room, mentally wincing at the disgusting yellow- green blood all over the floor. _'I hope I never have to see anything like this ever again, but I'll bear it now for Inuyasha's sake. He needs help now.' _"Kagome, get out of here now!" Inuyasha ordered, but he was completely ignored. _'She going to get herself killed, and there won't be a thing I can do about it. Damn it all.' _

"Take this, Naraku!" she shouted, pulling a purely magical arrow back on her bow and letting go. She watched the purple-pink shaft embed itself in one of the green tentacles, allowing more green-yellow blood to spew forth.

"Yuck!!" she exclaimed as she wrinkled her nose in disgust. _'That's the worst thing I've ever seen. I think it even beats the disgusting medicine the robots feed to me whenever I'm sick. At least the medicine doesn't resemble puke,'_ she thought. "That's just plain gross!"

"Well, it seems the little miko has decided to come out and play as well," Naraku said with a soft chuckle. "To what do I owe this pleasure, little human?"

Kagome snorted. "Go to hell." She snapped her fingers, and suddenly the magical arrow exploded, splattering bits and pieces of the tentacle all over the room and its occupants. _'I'm beginning to wonder if I really should have done that,' _she thought as she tried to wipe some of the blood off her face. _'But what I really want to know is why my magic worked on him so well. Every other demon has pretty much been immune to it.' _

"Good job, Kagome," Inuyasha said, sounding pleased. _'Now for the Kaze no Kizu.' _He prepared to use the attack, but he was quickly knocked to the ground by a tentacle.

Naraku hissed both in pain and annoyance. "You don't have normal miko magic," he growled. "You're different from all the others I fought against and killed. It seems your magic has close ties to the world itself." He shrugged. "I guess I'll just have to quickly fix this little oversight I made."

"No..." the miko whispered, brown eyes wide. "He can't. There's no way." She shook her head. _'It isn't fair! He shouldn't be able to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants.' _

"Bastard!" Inuyasha shouted, tone laced with fury. "Why don't you fight me like a man?!"

The hacker snorted as he began to glow with a black light. Even his tentacles took on a dark light, which bothered the other two in the room. Black lightning came out of no where, striking the ground, making Kagome jump in surprise. A whirlwind suddenly formed around the hacker, throwing both the inu youkai and the miko against the wall and keeping them there.

Inuyasha growled as Kagome groaned. "I will not allow you to keep this up!" he yelled, launching himself at his enemy with all his might. "Kaze no Kizu!" Orange power erupted out of his sword, heading straight for Naraku. It wrapped around the whirlwind, still glowing a bright orange but not hitting the hacker. Slowly, the power became black and then disappeared.

The inu hanyou cursed darkly._ 'Dammit! That was no supposed to happen.' _He looked over at Kagome as he came back in contact with the hard wall. "Try one of your arrows. See if that will work."

The miko nodded. "I'll try." She positioned her bow, but she couldn't draw it. The wall kept her from doing so. _'Crap!' _she thought dejectedly. _'That wasn't good. That wasn't good at all. I have to do something though.' _She took a deep breath. "I'm going to try something else," she informed Inuyasha, earning a nod of understanding from him.

Kagome dropped her bow and clasped her hands together as if she was praying. _'Please, let this work,' _she pleaded with the Japanese gods and goddesses. She quickly assumed that at least one had been listening because she felt her power flow all around her, gathering around her hands.

She focused all her attention on the tornado-encased hacker, praying that her place would work. _'This has to work.' _She said one last prayer as she fired all of her power at the whirlwind in the opposite direction that it was turning. _'If this doesn't work, I don't know what I'll do.' _

Purple-pink sparks flashed as her power flooded the room, blinding both her and Inuyasha. She could sense her magic filter through the tornado, stopping it cold before moving on to Naraku.

When Kagome regained her vision, the first thing she noticed was the fact that the hacker was still alive and fully functioning. He was still in one piece, and all his wounds were healed. Even though the whirlwind was gone, Naraku remained. The face of his outfit was gone, revealing red eyes and a slightly feminine face. The rest of his outfit was still intact, so no one knew what the rest of him looked like. Of course, no one wanted to find out how the tentacles attached to the rest of his body.

The hacker laughed while the miko cursed, effectively using all the dirty words that she had learned from the dog demon. "How stupid do you think I am, little miko?" he inquired, tone one of amusement. "Do you honestly think you could destroy me? I am invincible in my territory. No one, be it demon, human, miko, or priest, can kill me. You were simply wasting your and my time."

"We'll just see about that!" While Naraku had been dealing with Kagome, Inuyasha had snuck around to stand behind the hacker. "Bakuryuuha!" Immense power erupted out of his sword, enveloping his enemy. _'HA! I got you now, Naraku! Take that!' _He grinned, believing to have finally bested his opponent.

When the power cleared, Naraku was still there, a smile on his face. "Was that it?" He laughed, the sickening sound echoing through the room. "That was pathetic, even for a hanyou. Perhaps I should show you just how weak you are?" Still sadistically smiling, he attacked Inuyasha, the tentacles moving far faster than the inu youkai ever could, becoming a green blur.

With a loud smack, Inuyasha was flying through the air, crashing through one of the walls and landing on the floor with a thud. He groaned, slowly standing back up. _'My body can't take much more of this.' _

"Inuyasha!" the miko shouted, running towards her friend, her brown eyes filled with anxiety. _'Please don't be dead. Gods and goddesses, please, please don't let him be dead.' _

A tentacle suddenly wrapped around Kagome and wrenched her off the ground, squeezing her just enough so she couldn't escape. Of course in reaction to this, the miko screamed Inuyasha's name for all she was worth, hating the feel of vine-thing touching her. For some reason, she felt like something dark and dangerous was invading her body, poisoning her.

"Inuyasha! Help!" she yelled, pounding on the tentacle with all her strength. It didn't work, but she felt better after she did it. _'At least I'm trying to fight him,' _she thought optimistically. _'If I'm going down, I'm going to go down fighting.' _"Let go of me, you bastard!" she ordered Naraku.

The hacker simply laughed. "You are mine now, little miko. No one is left to save you," he replied.

"Let her go, Naraku!" a familiar voice shouted.

"What? Impossible!" Naraku turned to look in the direction he had thrown the dog demon in, his red eyes wide. "There's no way."

"Wanna bet, bastard?" Inuyasha retorted, flying towards his opponent, sword drawn and ready. Before the hacker could do anything, he buried his sword into the tentacle that was holding Kagome, trying to slice through it. He failed. Somehow, the vine-things had become much tougher.

"You idiot," Naraku declared, using one of his other tentacles to throw the dog demon across the room once again, the sword burying itself in the wall and de-transforming. "Nothing you or the miko could possibly do can hurt me. I am immune to both of your powers." He turned to Kagome. "You are mine, mine forever."

"NO!" Kagome screamed, struggling for all she was worth. "I'll never be yours! Ever!"

"You'll change your mind soon enough, especially if you want to leave this game," the hacker replied, tone sickly sweet.

The miko froze. _'There's no way he could do something like that. He can't trap me here. It's impossible,' _she thought, eyes fearful. _'But what if he can?' _

"I thought I told you to let her go?" Inuyasha inquired as he stood up, his eyes blood red._ 'I didn't want to use this form again so soon after the last time, but I don't have a choice. My sword is useless, and Kagome needs my help. I don't care what it takes; I will save her, even if I die doing so.' _He growled, baring his fangs. "I suggest you release her now before I decide to cut you into pieces and then deep-fry your ass."

Naraku laughed. "What kind of a fool are you? I already told you that nothing you do will work. You're helpless, and the miko is now mine."

The silver-haired hanyou cracked his knuckles. "We'll see about that. Sankon Tetsusou!" He struck out at the hacker, expecting some results. What he got wasn't exactly what he expected.

Naraku became red wherever Inuyasha's power struck, but it didn't seem to hurt him. In fact, he seemed just find. "Is that it?" he inquired, chuckling. "Well then, let me try!" He struck down on Inuyasha, smashing him into the floor. He continued to press the dog demon into the ground, enjoying the cracking noises that his enemy's back made. "Now that is a pleasant sound."

"Inuyasha!" Kagome cried out brokenly, wincing every time she heard the sound of his bones breaking. _'Dear gods and goddesses, please save him. Make Naraku stop! Please!' _she silently pleaded over and over. She couldn't bare to see the man she loved in so much pain.

A few seconds later, she few tired of praying. No one was responding, so she had to take things into her own hands. _'I will not let this continue any longer,' _she thought as Inuyasha whimpered in pain. _'I won't.' _

Knowing that she was pretty much out of power, she gathered up what she had left and tapped into her life force. If she used her life force, the life span of her character would be shortened, but she didn't care. Inuyasha was far to important to her.

"I hope you rot in Soku-no-Kumi for the rest of eternity!" Then, Kagome forced as much power as she could into the tentacle around her, sending it into his bloodstream.

Naraku shouted in pain, not leaving Inuyasha alone as he glared at Kagome. "I guess I need to break you in a little," he hissed, throwing her across the room into the shadows.

"Kagome," Inuyasha whispered before he once again screamed out in pure pain. Naraku was killing him, and making him feel like it was real. The game had become reality, and he couldn't even escape it.

The miko slammed into something tall and hard, her body quickly crumpling to the floor in a painful heap. "Inuyasha..." she mumbled, struggling to sit up. She succeeded and then tried to stand. The instant she put any weight on her right leg, she cried out and fell back to the floor. Her leg was broken, and there was nothing she could do about that. She barely had any life force left; she didn't even have enough for another attack.

It seemed hopeless. There was nothing left for her to do but die with Inuyasha or become Naraku's little pet. Neither sounded appealing to her, but if she had to choose one, then she would die with the man she loved.

Naraku laughed. "Ahhh... it's been so long since I've had such an interesting battle," he stated. "I've already killed all the people who attacked me, even Kikyou's husband. Unfortunately, the Elves allowed him to come back to life as a normal human. Of course, none of them had a death like the one you're going to have. I'm going to make you beg for mercy and cry like a baby before I finally decide to kill you."

"I won't give into you," Inuyasha growled in response, crying out in pain a moment later when a tentacle came smashing down on him, nearly crushing his chest. If he hadn't been in his full youkai form, he would be dead.

The hacker shrugged. "Maybe not now, but I can assure you that after a few hours of this, you'll do anything I ask, including give Kagome to me."

Maniacal laughter followed that, making both Kagome and Inuyasha wince. Their enemy really was psychotic.

The miko bit her bottom lip and tried to stand up once again, but she couldn't. With her injury, she couldn't even crawl._ 'I'm helpless,' _she thought darkly, shaking her head. _'That bastard is going to kill Inuyasha and there's nothing I can do about it.' _

Suddenly, she realized just what she had hit when Naraku had tossed her across the room. "Okuni- Nushi," she whispered to herself, eyes wide with surprise. Without her magic, she couldn't sense anything, but she knew where the Shikon no Tama was.

Hoping that the Shikon no Tama was something that could help her save Inuyasha, she began to search the surface of the statue's base, looking for the jewel or any way to open it up._ 'C'mon... c'mon. Just once, let me have a little good luck,' _she silently begged whoever would listen.

Kagome nearly leapt for joy when she found a small, thin crack in the base. Her fingers followed the crack, easily noticing that it formed a perfect square. _'Yes!' _

Inuyasha, of course, was praying that Kagome had somehow escaped. He couldn't see or hear her anymore, and he was in so much pain that all of his other senses were useless. The thought that she was safe was the only thing keeping him going. "You're going to die, Naraku. Maybe not today, but you will someday, and it will be by my hands," he stated, digging his claws into the tentacle that kept on striking him.

"I don't think so, you pathetic fool. You will die today, and I will make sure you will never be able to come back," Naraku retorted. "Because how can you come back if your mind is trapped inside this game?"

"Shit no," the dog demon whispered in disbelief, just barely shaking his head. _'There's no way. It's impossible. He can't do something like that. A hacker can't have that much power.' _

Kagome winced as she listened to Naraku and Inuyasha's discussion. _'I won't let him do that to you, Inuyasha,' _she swore. _'I'll find some way to stop him.' _

Taking a deep breath, she dug her nails into the crack and pulled with all her might. Slowly, the base began to open up, revealing that someone had placed a drawer inside the statue. _'Yes!' _Praying that the Shikon no Tama would be useful, she pulled even harder.

Bit by bit, she watched the contents of the drawer come out of its hiding place. It was a jewel, a beautiful, pink, glowing jewel nestled in a box lined with white silk.

Kagome blinked a few times. _'This is the Shikon no Tama? This is what I've been looking for?'_ she wondered, feeling a little disappointed. The jewel, while it looked absolutely lovely, appeared to be completely useless. _'Just my luck.' _

Shaking her head, she reached out for the jewel. Pink sparks jumped between her fingertips and the Shikon no Tama, surprising her. _'Maybe there is something special about this thing,' _she mused hopefully, praying that something good would come of her completing her quest.

Naraku looked down at Inuyasha, his pitiless eyes blazing like fire. "And now, you die, Inuyasha."

'Please let this stop Naraku from killing Inuyasha,' Kagome pleaded, her fingers finally coming in contact with the Shikon no Tama.

Instantly, a pink light burst forth, filling up the entire room. The miko gasped in surprise, finding herself floating in a pink abyss. The light was teeming with magic, flowing around her as it healed her. She could feel her broken bone becoming whole, and all her bruises and wounds disappeared.

Smiling, she looked around for Inuyasha, but all she could see was the pink light, the warm wonderful light. _'It must be healing him too, although I bet it destroyed Naraku,' _she thought happily. _'I'm sure that I'll get to see Inuyasha as soon as the light disappears.' _

So, Kagome patiently waited, allowing herself to float in peace for as long as she could. Slowly, the light faded away, and she floated back down to the ground, coming to stand directly in front of the statue.

"Thank you," she whispered to the jewel as she reached down and picked it up. A few pink sparks flew into the air, but she didn't worry about it. Most likely, they were simply a side effect from touching the Shikon no Tama.

The jewel in her hand, Kagome turned around to look for Inuyasha. She couldn't see anything--not Naraku, not Inuyasha, not a single speck of blood. The room was in pristine order, and the hole in the wall that a flying dog demon had created was gone.

"Inuyasha?" she called out, tone tinted with worry. "Where are you? Are you hiding from me behind a pillar or something?" She walked around the room a little, but she still didn't see even a hint of Inuyasha. "Where is he?"

The miko frowned, and her expression only became darker when a purple fairy suddenly flew into the room. "I've completed your dumb quest," she stated. "Now I hope you have some good news."

"You are to follow me with the Shikon no Tama to the Elven Council," the fairy replied.

"Not without Inuyasha, I'm not," Kagome retorted, tone firm. _'I began this quest with Inuyasha, I'm going to end it with him, too.' _

"Inuyasha can not come with," the winged-being informed her.

The miko clenched her fists, brown eyes flashing dangerously. "And why not? After all you put me through, I think you can allow him to come with me."

The fairy shook its head. "Inuyasha can not come with, because Inuyasha is dead."

Kagome stared at the tiny messenger in shock. "No. It's not possible. He can't be dead. NO!" She struck out at the fairy, but it easily dodged, coming to rest on a familiar object--Inuyasha's sword. _'If Inuyasha was alive, one of the first things he would have done was get his sword.' _

"Oh no," she whispered as she finally realized the truth. _'He's dead. I didn't get to the Shikon no Tama soon enough. Naraku killed him.' _She took a deep breath. _'I don't even know how to find him to get his email address. I don't know if I'll ever see him again. I love him, and I may never get to see him again.' _

Tears suddenly formed in her eyes. _'I didn't even get to say good-bye to him or tell him how I really feel. No... It's not fair. I loved him.' _

Kagome punched the ground as her frustration grew and her tears flowed freely down her cheeks. "INUYASHA!"

* * *

CotA: I have the distinct feeling that there are going to be some ticked reader out there now. ::shrugs:: Oh well. The next chapter will most likely be the last one. I'm thinking that I'm gonna skip out on the epilogue. I don't think I'll need it.

Zebez: After this big disappointment, I think you might need it, if only to calm down your readers.

Sess-chan: I think you should leave it here. My stupid younger brother should stay dead.

CotA: How can you say such things, Sess-chan? He's your brother!

Kali: _'And I think you all are idiots.'_

Zebez: You don't really mean that, now do you, Kali?

Kali: _'Ah... yeah. Duh.'_

Sess-chan: I think that I might need to trim your wings.

CotA: Don't even think about it. ::hears a beeping noise:: That's my cake! ::runs off::

Sess-chan: Now that the authoress is gone, how about we see if plucking her wings is like plucking a chicken?

Zebez: ::shrugs:: Why not? ::approaches Kali::

Kali: _'Stay away.'_ ::throws a fireball at the two men::

CotA: ::enters the room with a giant chocolate cake to find a smoking Zebez and Sess- chan:: I told you not even to think about it, but did you listen to me? Nooooo, you didn't. ::sighs:: Kali, I guess you and I are going to be the only ones eating the cake. ::hands Kali a plate and fork:: Enjoy!

Zebez: Now that's not fair.

CotA: Oh... hush. Or I'll stick you in the Barbie room as punishment.

Zebez and Sess-chan: ::shudder:: Scary. 

CotA: Now that the boys are behaving, we can move onto the reviews.

Sakura-onto-Hitomi: Yes, sugar tends to help me write. I'm not sure why. It just does. Thanks for the cookies. ::munches:: Very good. ::smiles::

Kittymui: Picky? Wow. I feel special now. And I appreciate the compliment. Really I do.

SilentSlayer: laughs I'm guessing you speak another language rather fluently, huh?

Knight Star: No, it's not an anime crossover. The three ladies are not from Oh My Goddess.

Xio the Dog Demoness: Yes, Naraku finally showed up. Took him long enough, huh?

Raining Fire: You'll just have to wait and see. Maybe they'll meet. Maybe they won't. I'm not telling.

From: Dragon Man 180: The girls are not from Oh My Goddess. And I liked the idea of Inuyasha being able to use the demon form as well. It's a computer game, and I didn't think he could lose his mind in the game. At least, I hope not.

Princess Anubus: Yes, a cliffy. I tend to do that every so often.

kumiko-chan: Sorry, but I couldn't write more without combining chapter 8 and 9 together. And I understand how easy it is to forget to check up on the stories you're reading. I do it all the time.

Crispy Muffin: Yes, Naraku is one bad hacker. I've read some of your story, and if you want, I can go through and correct the errors in the chapters I've read so far.

Yanou: They're not exactly EVIL, and I guarentee that you'll see them again.

jdls: Canada? Cool. I just live in the US. And of course I haven't given up on it. I get too many reviews for me to do that.

inuyasha kagome2: I think you know what they saw by now.

x-Bandet-x: Thank you, and I will keep updating.

RL Cassie: yes, darling, human frogger. And as cute as the original idea was, I don't think it would have worked all that well. Besides, Naraku is sadistic, and the original idea just wasn't sadistic enough. And I don't think Kuwabara is THAT stupid.

Lady Icykimi: Yes, I updated. Awww... you're selling the cute puppies. That's so sad, but at least you're other doggie is going to have some. ::grins:: That's so cool. And yes, I'm almost done with this story. Chapter ten will be the final chappie. I might do an epilogue, but I'm not sure. It all depends on how things go.

Drake220: Thanks. I'm glad you like all the cute fluffyness.

Evilfire4321: I will update. Really I will.

PWA: I've only read part of one book of Fruits Basket, although I found it to be really cute.


	10. Chapter 10

Virtual Reality

Chapter Ten

Inuyasha stared at the black screen in front of him. He had died. He had actually died. Two and a half years of playing the game had finally resulted in his death, and he didn't even know what had killed him. All he could remember was a bright pink light and then blackness.

'I hope Kagome's alright,' he thought, trying to see if he could get back into the game from the last place he had saved. He clicked on the link to the Ancient Worlds game, less than patiently waiting for it to load. He wanted to see if Kagome had survived the pink light, if she had somehow defeated Naraku. He prayed that she had as he tried to open up his game.

A message appeared in front of Inuyasha, causing him to blink a few times in surprise. _'Cannot open file. File no longer exists,' _he repeated in his mind.

He growled. "What'd'ya mean, the file no longer exists!?" he shouted angrily, shaking his fist at the message. After a few seconds, he calmed down enough to try his backup file. He always saved everything on his hard drive, just in case.

The backup would have worked, if another message hadn't popped up saying he was blocked from the game... forever. _'Forever? How dare they!' _He would never be able to log on again, never be able to see Kagome, hear her laugh, enjoy her smile and her hugs. He'd never be able to even give her a virtual kiss. Without her email address or any idea of what else she was in, he had no way of contacting her. _'Kagome...' _

In a fit of rage, Inuyasha jerked off his VR helmet and stormed out of his room, slamming his door shut. He couldn't believe it. Kagome was probably gone from his life forever. He'd never be able to meet her in real life at any of the cafes or see what she actually looked like.

As he raged down the hallway, expression dark, he almost ran into someone. Of course, that only made him angrier.

"Well, little brother, I see you still cannot keep your temper under control," Sesshoumaru commented, a condescending smirk on his face.

"Oh, shove it, Sesshoumaru," Inuyasha retorted, glaring up at his older brother.

"Now, what in the world could have happened to put you in such a state? Perhaps the girl you were with decided to take your sword?" he suggested, an all-knowing smirk on his face. _'Considering how powerful that sword was, this is probably the case. Even I would become angry is someone stole my sword from me.' _

"No," younger male spat back in response, tone cold. "She would never do anything like that."_ 'I can't believe he could even suggest such a thing.' _

Sesshoumaru shrugged, not caring that he had made the wrong observance. He hadn't really thought the miko had betrayed his younger brother anyway. She seemed too loyal for that. "Well then, what happened to stir you up so?"

"Stupid bastard Naraku tried to kill both of us. I ended up dying from some pink light while we were fighting," Inuyasha answered, voice still laced with fury. He really wanted to smash something. _'I still hate Naraku, but at least he's probably dead like me.' _

"Is that all?" The elder brother sounded unimpressed, his hazel eyes showing nothing but calm interest. "Many people die during the game, but they simply log back on and go back to where they had last saved. Did you not save your game?" He couldn't help but wonder why his brother could not get back on the game. It was not a difficult matter.

He growled, violet eyes flashing with annoyance. "Yes, I did, but I can't get back on. The stupid Elven Council won't let me," he explained. "I can never play the game again. I have a lifetime ban." _'Which is completely unfair. The bastard Elves don't care what fair is though, so there's no way I'll ever get to play again.' _

"What did you do to deserve that, little brother?" Sesshoumaru inquired, remaining calm. He saw no reason to become so overexcited, which was what his younger sibling had done. Remaining emotionless was usually the best course of action. _'I highly doubt he went around killing people. That's not his style. Besides, he was on a quest. Something extreme must have happened for the Elven Council to place such a ban on him.' _

"I don't know, but the fucking bastards are going to pay!" Inuyasha responded vehemently, fire blazing in his purple eyes. "I won't take this from them, not after all the rest of the crap they've put Kagome and me through." He growled, which sounded pitiful compared to the growl he could do in the game. _'I miss Kagome,' _he thought sadly. _'I really miss her.'_

"Hm.... you could always plead your case to them, ask them to let you back on the game," the hazel-eyed man suggested, brushing some of his long black hair over his shoulder. "Although it would take them a few months to read and even to respond to your request."

The violet-eyed man simply grumbled, less than pleased with how things were going. "The stupid bastards could probably care less than I'm dead and can't get back on. They've been trying to force me out of the game since they gave me my quest and only a week to do it." He balled his fist and punched the wall, listening to the self-satisfying thud that resulted. _'I feel a little better now, at least.' _

"Only a week? Well then... perhaps you are right," Sesshoumaru conceded. "Although I never thought they would be so blatantly unfair." He shrugged. "Very well then. There is nothing I can do." He turned and began to walk.

"Wait!" Inuyasha shouted, a small seed of hope forming in his chest. "Can you do me a favor?"

The older brother blinked, contemplating how he wished to answer the question. "It depends on what it is."

"Can you give someone a message for me?" the younger man clarified, violet eyes unknowingly pleading.

Sesshoumaru nodded. "Yes, I suppose," he answered. "As long as it does not take up too much of my time."

"Well, Kami help me if I take more than two seconds of Lord Sesshoumaru's precious time," Inuyasha retorted sarcastically.

"Do you wish my help or not?" the elder man asked, raising an eyebrow. While he was willing to help, he did not feel like putting up with his brother's sarcasm.

The violet-eyed man nodded. "Yes."

"So, now. Who do I need to give this message to?" Sesshoumaru wanted to know.

"Kagome," Inuyasha stated.

The taller male raised an eyebrow. "And how am I supposed to know who that is?"

"Do you remember the girl who was with me at your castle?" Inuyasha inquired, earning a nod in response. "That's Kagome, and I here's want you to tell her..."

* * *

Kagome sniffled quietly as she followed the fairy out of the palace and into the countryside. Night had fallen in the game, just like in the real world, but she didn't really care about that. She merely wanted to talk to Inuyasha again, to hear his voice. _'I miss him so much,' _she thought to herself as a tear trickled down her cheek. _'I can't believe he's dead.' _She wrapped her arms around herself as she continued to walk, her mind still bogged down with sadness. More than anything else, she simply wanted to see the man she loved again, even if it was only for a few minutes. _'At least I'll be able to give the Elves a piece of my mind,' _she thought, trying to cheer herself up a tiny bit. She failed.

"Here." The fairy pointed to an oak doorway in the middle of nowhere. "The Elven Council is on the other side waiting for you."

"They'd better be," Kagome muttered, grabbing the door handle and pulling. The instant she opened the door, a great blackness pulled her inside. Then, the oak door promptly closed and disappeared.

* * *

Urd sighed softly. "It's so sad that he died," she commented. "Why did he have to die? Do you know, Verdandi?"

The blond woman shook her head, blue eyes dull. "I don't know. You'll have to ask Skuld to find out that bit of information. I know it's probably important to the future, but I just can't see it... not like she can."

"She's in charge of the future, so of course she can see it," the silver-haired woman commented. "But I hope that Kagome and Inuyasha somehow see each other again. After all the work we did, they should stay together."

Verdandi shrugged. "I don't know what's going to happen, but I do share your hopes. I believe Kagome and Inuyasha are perfect for each other; they just have to fully realize it."

Urd gently touched the surface of the reflecting pool, changing the image to a large room filled with candlelight. "May everything come out all right," she prayed as she zoomed in one particular person in the scene--a black-haired miko.

The blonde placed a hand on Urd's shoulder. "I think it will be."

* * *

"Session 2239 of the Elven Council will now come into session," said an old man with pointed ears, gray hair, and dark eyes. He wore a brown and green male-style kimono that looked more black than anything in the candlelight. "Everyone, take your seats."

Twenty other people, who had previously been milling around the room, chatting, sat down in a long row of chairs that ran on either side of the old man. The talking immediately ceased, and every single person turned attentive eyes to the man in brown and green.

"For the first item of business, I believe we have to deal out a reward for a completed quest," the old man stated. "Kagome, if you will please come forward."

Kagome stepped out of the corner of the room, the Shikon no Tama held tightly in her hands. "So you're the Elven Council?" she inquired, a dangerous look in her brown eyes.

"Yes," one of the members answered, his blue eyes curious. "Do you have something to say to us?"

"I do." She took a few more steps forward, glaring at each and ever member of the Council. "Why did you give me and Inuyasha so much crap?! Why did you give him only a week to complete his quest? Why did you change the time limit on mine? Why did you give me a quest when I was still a newbie? Why were so many AIs sent our way? Why were we put through so much? Why is Inuyasha dead?! WHY?!" She stomped her foot as tears threatened to reform in her eyes.

The Council members began muttering amongst themselves, almost as if they didn't know the answer to all her questions. After a few moments, the old man in the center silenced them.

"Now, Kagome, we cannot answer all of your questions, mainly because we don't know the answer to all of them, but I can tell you why Inuyasha is dead," he began, clasping his hands in his lap. "When you touched the Shikon no Tama, it reacted to the fact that you were a miko. It sent out a wave of power that went one mile, destroying every demon it touched. This is one of the reasons Naraku died. It is also the reason Inuyasha died. He was inside the one-mile radius of power."

"So... I killed him?" the miko inquired, eyes filling up with tears.

"Yes and no. When you touched the jewel you set it off, but it was the jewel itself that killed him," the old man answered. "If you hadn't used the Shikon no Tama, then Naraku would have definitely killed him. No matter what, Inuyasha would have died."

"Why was Naraku inside the game? Whey hadn't you gotten rid of him earlier? Surely you could've," Kagome protested vehemently. "You run the game! You control everything. There must have been something you could have done!"

He shook his head. "No. Naraku's hacking powers gave him abilities that kept us from touching him; however, he never anticipated the Shikon, so he had no defense to it."

"And why don't you know the answers to my other questions? You guys are the creeps that did everything to us!" She growled at him in a perfect imitation of Inuyasha.

"Because we received our orders from someone else," the old man answered.

The miko sighed sadly. "So, everything was out of your hands?"

He nodded. "Yes."

"And... there was nothing I could have done to save Inuyasha?" she wanted to know.

"Nothing," he assured her, voice kind.

Kagome looked down at the jewel in her hands for a moment. _'This is what killed him,' _she thought, suddenly hating the object. She went over to the old man and gave the Shikon no Tama to him. "Here. You can keep it. I don't want it."

Then, she spun around and began to walk away. She saw no reason to stick around the Elven Council for any longer.

"Wait!" someone called after her.

Kagome turned around to see one of the council members standing up. It was a woman with long black hair and brown eyes. "You're forgetting your reward, and I'm pretty sure you'll want it. Trust me. I would want it if I was in your shoes." She smiled.

"What is it?" the miko inquired, blinking curiously. _'Could my reward be seeing Inuyasha again?' _she wondered.

"You may have one wish," she replied. "You can wish for anything you want, and if we can grant it, we will."

'I can wish for Inuyasha!' Kagome thought, her heart leaping with joy. "I wish Inuyasha was still alive and by my side!" she declared, hands clasped together as she said a silent prayer.

The woman nodded. "Alright. Your wish will be granted."

"Thank you! Thank you so much..." The miko drifted off, not quite sure what to call the woman.

She smiled. "My name is Midoriko."

"Thank you, Midoriko!" Kagome bowed to the woman, her eyes shining with pure joy.

"You're welcome, and if your wish is not granted in twenty-four hours, send me an email. I'll kick any lazy butts and give them a stern talking to," Midoriko promised. "Now, go on and have some fun. The door behind you will take you to Sesshoumaru's territory, just in case you wanted to know."

The miko nodded. "Alright. And thank you again." So, smiling, she opened the door and was once again pulled through the gateway by a mass of blackness.

* * *

Kagome found herself right outside Sesshoumaru's castle, but she didn't see Sesshoumaru. So, she saved her game and logged off for the night. _'I can talk to him in the morning and have him tell Inuyasha about my wish.' _

Then, she used the bathroom, changed into her pajamas, and went to bed.

* * *

Inuyasha yawned as he woke up, stretching his arms over his head. The sun had just risen, sending sunbeams playing across his room. It was quiet, but he could hear a door open and close just down the hall. Sesshoumaru was awake.

Still a little tired, Inuyasha looked up at the ceiling. "House, I'd like a ham and cheese omelet and a glass of orange juice please."

After two minutes, a small 'bot wheeled in and delivered the meal. Inuyasha ate his eggs halfheartedly. He still missed Kagome, and he just didn't feel the same without being able to see her everyday. Of course, if Sesshoumaru gave her his message, then everything would turn out just fine.

So, he finished off his juice, watched the robot take everything away, and then logged onto the internet and did a search for a new game to play.

* * *

As soon as Kagome woke up, she threw on some clothes, gobbled down her breakfast, and hurriedly logged onto the Ancient Worlds game. In no time at all, she was looking back up at Sesshoumaru's castle, praying that he was actually there.

"Sesshoumaru!" she called out, hoping he was there. No answer came, so she just sat down at the base of the wall and waited. Considering her level of anticipation, she could only wait about five minutes before she shouted again. "Sesshoumaru! Are you there?!"_ 'Please, please, please say he's going to log on today,' _she begged the gods and goddesses of ancient Japan.

Still, there was no response, so she waited a little bit longer. Every five minutes she called out Sesshoumaru's name, hoping he'd hear her. After about half an hour, she heard a response.

"Yes? What do you want?" a masculine voice called back. It was Sesshoumaru.

Kagome stood up, a large smile on her face. "I want to talk to you about Inuyasha."_ 'My day is finally starting to look up.' _

The taiyoukai blinked in surprise. "Interesting. I have a message for you from him," he replied. "The door is on the other side. Use it."

The miko nodded and did as he ordered, running practically the entire way to the door. Once inside, she immediately found Sesshoumaru standing nearby, arms crossed.

"I will give you the message, and then you may speak," he stated. "Inuyasha wants you to know that his email address is Inuyasha at demon mail dot com. He wants to talk to you as soon as possible, and he misses you."

Kagome smiled as she quickly memorized the email address. It wasn't that hard to remember. "Alright, and I have a message for Inuyasha. My reward for completing the quest was a wish, and I wished for Inuyasha to be brought back to life and to be by my side. The Elven Council granted it."

Sesshoumaru stared down at her. "Why do you not simply email him and tell him yourself?" he wanted to know, raising an eyebrow.

"OH!" She brought a hand up to one of her cheeks. "You're right!" She laughed at her own silliness. "I'll do that. Thank you, Sesshoumaru!" Then, she ran out of the castle and logged off.

Once outside of the game, Kagome opened up her email account and quickly composed a message to Inuyasha.

* * *

_**Dear Inuyasha,**_

**I have good news for you. The Elven Council said they'd grant me a wish for completing the quest, and I wished for you to be brought back to life. My wish should be granted by the end of today. We'll be able to see each other again.**

**I did get your message from Sesshoumaru, as you've probably realized, and I want you to know that I miss you too. I can't wait to see you and talk to you again.**

**Love,**

**Kagome **

* * *

Kagome sent the message to him, and in five minutes, she had an answer.

* * *

_**Dear Kagome,**_

**I can't believe you used your wish to bring me back to life in the game. I don't know what to say other than thank you.**

**I also want to talk to you, but I'd rather do it face to face. Can you meet me in the Rose Cafe today?**

**Love,**

**Inuyasha**

* * *

Kagome giggled, clapping her hands. She couldn't believe it. The Rose Cafe was the one in her town, and it would take her only ten minutes to get there.

Of course, she hadn't missed the 'Love, Inuyasha' at the end, which either meant that he most definitely cared about her or he had simply copied her letter format. Since she doubted the latter, she went with the former option. Besides, she believed that Inuyasha did care about her. After all, he had said that he missed her. She just didn't know how much he cared about her.

So, with many happy thoughts on her mind, which happened to all be about Inuyasha, she typed a response.

* * *

_**Dear Inuyasha,**_

**I'd love to meet you there. How does nine o'clock sound? That'd give us both half an hour to get there.**

**Love,**

**Kagome**

* * *

Within a minute, she received a response.

* * *

_**Dear Kagome,**_

**Nine sounds great. I'll be there.**

**Love,**

**Inuyasha**

* * *

Kagome, of course, quickly logged off of the internet, took off her VR helmet, and quickly set about getting ready. She wanted to look nice for Inuyasha.

She changed into a black pair of pants and a forest green v-neck shirt. Then, she brushed her hair, washed her face, and brushed her teeth. After pulling on her socks and shoes, she called out to the house.

"House, I need a 'bot to take me to the Rose Cafe," she stated.

"One will be sent to you in a moment," the house replied in its genderless, soothing voice.

Kagome only had to wait a full minute for a small robot to appear. "Let's get going," she declared, and the 'bot began to lead the way. She followed it out of her room, down the hall, into the kitchen, and out the door.

She smiled and deeply breathed in the fresh air. It felt so nice outside and she was so excited that she couldn't help but skip for a few moments. _'I'm going to see Inuyasha... the real Inuyasha!' _she thought happily._ 'I can't wait!' _

Her mind on Inuyasha, Kagome continued to walk behind the robot, and soon she arrived at the cafe. She went inside, the 'bot at her heels.

The inside of the cafe was bright and cheery. About twenty tables stood on a simple cream and blue tile floor, and four chairs sat around each table. Along one wall was a counter with different rolls and drinks displayed in a glass case. A man stood behind the counter, his dirty blond hair tousled and his green eyes observant.

Kagome chose to sit at one of the tables near the door, feeling rather anxious. It wasn't quite nine yet; the clock on the wall read ten till nine. She didn't want to wait any longer, and every second that ticked by felt like an eternity to her. _'I want to see Inuyasha now,' _she thought with a mental sigh.

At two minutes till nine, a man walked into the cafe. His black hair fell to his waist and violet eyes stared out of a handsome, familiar face. He was dressed in loose black pants and a red shirt. The instant his eyes landed on the raven-haired girl, he smiled. "Hi, Kagome."

"Inuyasha?" she asked, although she already knew the answer.

He nodded. "Yeah. It's me. Good to see you."

Kagome, of course, did better than merely greet him. She stood up and flung her arms around him in a tight hug, pressing her face into the crook of his neck.

Inuyasha returned the hug, wrapping his arms around her waist and simply enjoying the feel of her._ 'I've never felt anything so good,' _he thought, nuzzling his nose into her hair.

They stayed like that for a few minutes, simply enjoying each other's company. Finally, Kagome broke the embrace, pulling away from Inuyasha and smiling at him. "Do you want to sit down and talk for a while?"

"Sounds good," he answered, returning her smile.

They sat down, and he took her hand in his, wanting to keep contact with her for the simple reason that he enjoyed her touch. They were both quiet for a moment or two, mainly because both were trying to think of a way to start out their conversation.

"I missed you too, Inuyasha," Kagome stated finally, figuring that anything was better than nothing.

"You should already know that I missed you." He paused. "But why did you use your wish to bring me back to life. Surely you could have thought of something else to use it for."

She shook her head. "No, I couldn't have." She gave his hand a squeeze. "You are more important to me than anything else."

Inuyasha returned the gesture, a slight blush staining his cheeks. "Thank you."

"No thanks are needed," Kagome replied with a smile. "I was happy to do it."

The black-haired man suddenly licked his lips, his expression nervous. "The reason I wanted to meet you here was because I have something important to tell you," he informed her, his violet eyes not leaving her brown ones for a moment.

Her heart caught in her throat, and she felt her breathing practically stop as she waited for him to continue. _'What is he going to say? Why am I so anxious all of a sudden?' _

Inuyasha gave her a quick kiss on the lips. "I love you, Kagome."

Kagome smiled and kissed him back. "I love you, too, Inuyasha."

* * *

"Awww!" Verdandi smiled at the sweet display of affection between Kagome and Inuyasha. "I don't think I've ever seen anything so cute."

"It seems that everything did turn out alright. We definitely achieved our objective," Urd stated, touching the image of Kagome and Inuyasha in the cafe, making it disappear. "I'm happy for them both, although there were times I thought we would fail."

"You mean that you doubted my word?!" Skuld exclaimed as she came into the room, pretending to sound appalled. "How could you? My own sisters!"

The blonde laughed. "You are strange sometimes, Skuld."

The black-haired woman grinned. "Of course I am. Life wouldn't be the same if I wasn't."

Urd, of course, decided it was time to get back to business. "Have you figured out who the next two people we need to concentrate on are?" she inquired, tone curious.

Skuld nodded and touched the reflecting pool twice, causing two different images to appear. One was of a brown-eyed woman, her black hair in a high ponytail. She was dressed in a black suit that proclaimed her as a youkai hunter. She stood near Cleopatra's throne, a young boy nearby.

The other image was of a man with dark blue eyes, his black hair in a small ponytail at the nape of his neck. He was dressed in black and purple priest clothes, a staff in one hand.

"The next two people for us to deal with are Sango and Miroku."

THE END

* * *

CotA: ::sighs sadly:: I'm kinda sad to see if go, but at least I added Sesshoumaru in there again. I hadn't exactly planned on it, but I figured, "hey, why not?"

Zebez: I don't see why you're so happy about having him in there again. It's not like he was a main character.

Sess-chan: Just wait until the third story.

Zebez: And why would I want to do that? Besides, I have more important things to do than read the stories you're in charge of. ::wraps his arms around CotA's waist from behind:: I have courting to do.

Sess-chan: ::growls:: Release her, half breed. I will not tolerate your filthy hands on her.

CotA: Sess-chan, Zebez, be nice... please. I just finished a story, so we should be celebrating, not fighting. ::sighs when Sess-chan and Zebez continue fighting:: ENOUGH!

Sess-chan and Zebez: ::go flying across the room::

Kali: _'About time you did that. They have been asking for it for a while.'_

CotA: ::Sighs when the fighting resumes:: This is getting to be too much. ::looks at the boys:: Alright! Both of you get to spend the day in the Barbie room!

Sess-chan and Zebez: ::vanish::

CotA: Okay... while they're cooling down, I'm going to explain a few things. The three women were the norns from Norse mythology, which are the equivilant of the three fates. As for the sequel, I don't have a clue when it is going to come out, but it will be about eight chapters long, give or take a bit. If you want to know when I finally put it up, I can email you. Just tell me in a review that you want me to tell you when I update. Now, the review responses are below.

Juria-chan: Yes, he can die, but he can also come back to life. And the Elves aren't as stupid as you thought, huh? It was the norns doing everything.

InsanexPsycho: Ummm... are you okay? ::fans InsanexPsycho:: C'mon... wake up. I don't think it good to have my reviewers fainting.

HanyouBabe456: Yes, I am evil, and I'm darn proud of it.

DRAKE220: Why would the norns go down? They had good reason to do everything they did. Really.

samantha: I've read quite a bit by Tamora Pierce. She is one of my favorite authors.

Fun-KillinReportCard: Yes, I am evil. I admit it. ::grins unrepentantly::

shi no megumi: ::hands Shi no Megumi some tissues:: Dry your eyes. See? I made everything better. I always do. And about those dolls... ::laughs:: Those are such kawaii little dolls. Where did you get those? And there's no need to worship me. I'm not some goddess, even an authoress goddess. Trust me on this one. There are much better authors out there... like Sakura Onto Hitomi, moonsilver, and Striking Falcon. All three write Inuyasha fanfiction, and all have such great stories. ::smiles:: Check some of them out before you start praising me.

Purple Witchy Angel: Yes, I am mean. Yes, I am evil. No, I don't care. But honestly, you should know me well enough by now to know that I wouldn't end a story in a depressing way.

Angel's ghost: Yes, I am a Tamora Pierce fan. I love her books so much.

linear: It wasn't Kikyou that surprised them.

Jupiter's Light: Thank you for the compliments, and I hope this chappie met your expectations.

sashlea: Thanks for wondering about Sesshoumaru. It's because of that I added that scene between Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru.

Nicole: You were on the verge of tears? Geez. Now I feel bad. I don't like making my readers cry. But, at least the ending was happy, right?

eruinichil: Relax. Everything turned out fine. See?

Kim: Excellent job guessing that they were past, present, and future. I applaud you. And Inu had to die because... well... it made for an interesting ending to the chapter as well as added some drama. Besides, I had to give Kagome something to wish for.

meq: Inuyasha turned out to be just fine, so please don't throw any kind of fit. Please? I don't think I could deal with it.

inuyasha kagome2: Yes, Inuyasha died. It was only temporary though.

Xio the Dog Demoness: Strangely enough, killing off Inuyasha was relatively easy. I just had to separate my mind from my body and let my fingers go. The chappie turned out well enough, right? And I'm evil, so being cruel comes naturally.

Dragon Man 180: Yes, I am evil, and I'm rather proud of it.

Yanou: Thanks for not killing me for the ending. So many people got onto me for that, although I believe the worst insult I received was "meanie" and "you're evil." Not bad, huh?

evilfire4321: Yes, I made suspense. That's what good writers do sometimes. It keeps people interested in their stories.

SilentSlayer: Yes, that was cruel, and I was planning on killing him and bringing him back from the very beginning. I am sorry if I made you cry though.

Crispy Muffin: Yes, I've read some of your story. I've corrected some of it to. I'll send it to you in a bit.

Kittymui: Thanks for your support. ::hugs Kitty-chan:: I appreciate it.

Raining Fire: Relax. You should know me well enough to know that I never give a story a sad ending. Characters of mine have a habit of coming back to life.

Kitsune's Girl370: Why I did that? Hm... let's see here. I think it was because it helped the plot a little and made a nice little twist. ::shrugs:: That, and I had his death planned from the very beginning.

Footballchik21: Yes, a slight cliffie. And your guess was close. And the women are the norns.

Knight Star: I admit, it was a little sad. And the reason I updated so soon was because I was suddenly imspired. :shrugs:: It happens sometimes.

jdls: Yeah... I've been to lazy to sigh in quite a few times. ::shrugs:: It happens.


End file.
